University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


STAR-FLOWERS, 


A    POEM     OF    THE 


WOMAN'S    MYSTERY 


BY 


THOMAS     LAKE    HARRIS 


AWAKE,  arise !  with  Morning  cast 
Brave  songs  for  gladness  on  the  blast. 
Kejoice,  respire!   Heaven  must  achieve 
Its  ends  on  Earth,  where  lives  retrieve. 


CANTO  THE  SIXTH 


FOUNTAINGROVE 

PRIVATELY   FEINTED 

1887 


STAR-FLOWERS 


CANTO   THE   SIXTH. 


868738 


DEDICATION. 


IN  Woman's  consecrated  form 
I  set  the  verse  against  the  storm, 
That  it  may  glide  by  joys  that  bless, 
Diffusive  from  her  loveliness. 

She  bore  aloft  on  radiant  arm 
The  Joy-Babe,  mantling  from  her  charm. 
What  likeness  in  the  babe  appears  ? 
That  of  the  Child  amid  the  spears. 

She  spaced  her  being  full  through  mine : 
It  held  the  Babe  displayed  divine. 
' Faithful/  she  spake,  'as  we  bestow, 
The  Golden  Child  doth  by  us  go.' 

Our  Issa's  name  is  '  Wise-to-bless ! ' 

• 

Fold  in  the  song  my  Preciousness. 
Fore-view,  fore-strive,  fore-love,  fore-know  : 
Ope  while  she  fashions  to  bestow. 

So  we  will  dedicate  the  page 

To  all  who  hope  Love's  Golden  Age, 

And  feel  it  dawning  into  them, 

As  the  Crowned  Babe  of  Bethlehem. 


STAR-FLOWERS. 


CANTO  THE  SIXTH. 


INVOCATION. 
I. 

THOU  who  dost  brighten  earth  with  beams  divine ; 

Thou  GOD,  my  Father,  glorious,  glowing,  golden, 
Making  the  day,  for  such  warm  pleasure-twine, 

To  wake  irradiant  in  Thy  ardors  folden ; 

Thou  who  wert  in  the  Silver  Age  beholden, 
All  premcarnate  from  the  solar  prime; 

Thou  who,  when  man  by  wintry  night  did  colden, 
Envailed  in  human  weeds  Thy  Youth  sublime, 
My  heart  is  in  Thy  Heart ;  Thy  Word  is  in  my  rhyme. 

II. 

Therefore,  whilst  Thought,  in  light  of  morn  excursive, 

Lifts  like  a  warrior  armed  with  sun-bright  spear, 
And  the  dim  shadows  from  the  brain  dispersive 

Fade  to  white  vapors  that  for  rains  appear, 

I  kindle  fervidly,  till  songs  anear 
Like  the  small  love-babes  of  the  Mother-mind : 

They  multiply,  as  stars  when  heaven  is  clear 
And  Night  their  flowers  in  fire-wreaths  hath  untwined, 
To  breathe  by  living  rays  for  quickening  in  mankind. 


6  STAR-FLO  WEES* 

III. 

The  Silver  Age  enrapturing  did  hold  Thee : 

Thou  wert  the  Inspiration  of  its  Powers : 
Its  lady-thought  for  preciousness  did  fold  Thee, 
-Bridegroom;  6  JFtei'des,  in  her  enchanted  bowers. 

'Hitiu  didst  impre.gn'ate  her  immortal  flowers, 
^iillfiht^stitjr  ybsei  E&tf-ft  goddess-girl, 

Diffusing  wealth  to  fill  the  rounding  hours ; 
Weaving  for  infancy  through  woman's  pearl ; 
Leading  the  Word-seed  forth  by  song  and  breath  and  whirl. 

IV. 

Thy  flames  enkindled  on  the  mountain  altars, 
Till  melody  by  sevenfold  waves  wrought  flow. 

Thy  Song-Word  opened  in  the  plexial  psalters, 
Till  men  vibrated  as  where  thunders  go 
Wrought  in  humanities,  and  trumpets  blow 

Shaped  as  bright  warriors  mailed  in  sounding  fire. 
I  waken  in  that  wTorld  of  long-ago, 

When  Thou  didst  clasp  the  People  for  Thy  lyre, 

And  wreathe  the  bliss-fraught  mind  with  music  for  attire. 

V. 

Truly  Thou  wert  for  them  the  Joyful  King : 

The  winds,  the  waters,  met  mankind  by  dances ; 
The  naiad  lifted  from  her  crystal  spring, 

Glowing  to  jeweled  radiance  from  Thy  glances. — 

Again,  again  the  Silver  Time  advances ; 
The  prehistoric  years  make  blithe  return : 

O'er  the  pale  orient  rise  the  gleaming  lances ; 
The  quickening  Planet  thrills,  her  bands  to  spurn  : 
Thy  powers  are  in  the  winds;  the  waters  for  Thee  burn. 


STAR-FLOWERS . 
VI. 

But  now  Thou  comest  post-incarnate,  surely, 
More  glorious  than  in  that  far  time  before, 

And  they  who  worshiped  to  Thy  Presence  hourly 
And  in  their  manhood  from  Thee  wove  and  wore 
Robes  of  the  Word's  intelligence,  and  bore 

The  cross  of  morning  in  the  breast  and  brain, 
Flush  for  the  brightening  as  new-spangled  ore, 

Wrought  all  the  morning's  radiance  to  regain. 

The  fires  of  their  swift  breath  are  mingled  in  my  strain. 

VII. . 

Apollo  of  the  Morn !  Christ-Jesus  after ! 

Behold  me  worshiping ;  illuminate. 
Be  Thou  unto  me  as  the  God  of  Laughter, 

Gliding  for  gladness  through  the  plexial  gate, 

That  song  a  little  while  may  antedate 
The  rapturings,  and  thrill  the  dense  morass 

Where  Misery  clasps  and  claims  the  desolate, 
And  through  this  darksome  world  of  sorrow  pass 
Waves  of  delight  that  glow  like  seas  of  molten  glass. 

VIII. 

Fuse  Thou  the  crystals  of  white  thought ;  inbreathe ; 

Make  bridal  glories  of  Thy  Love's  bestowing, 
Till  jeweled  words  melodious  shall  wreathe. — 

I  chant,  I  charm,  I  cheer  for  such  bestrowing. 

Song  billows  in  me  to  the  overflowing : 
Imperial,  godlike,  Poesy  is  wrought 

As  in  Apollo's  manhood  for  the  showing : 
In  Helios-Christus  it  is  lifted,  fraught 
As  when  day  shone  by  Him  who  erst  the  python  fought. 


8  STAR-FLOWERS. 

BRIDAL-MORN     IN     LILISTAN. 

I  woke  by  morn  in  Issa's  violet  chamber, 

Clasped  in  the  lilies  of  her  marriage  bed ; 
While  the  sweet  poesies  began  to  clamber 

Through  full  delights  my  bosom's  life  that  wed. 

Mine  eyes,  on  slumbering  loveliness  that  fed, 
Beheld  the  Beauty  of  the  Word  arise, 

Making  for  morn  its  gold-flowers  to  dispread. 
Sure  there  is  rest  where  God  weaves  paradise. 
Morn  through  the  bridal  girl  by  joy-in-mystery  plies. 

X. 

Lo,  there  were  stars  folding  to  deeps  of  azure. 

The  night  was  vanishing  from  breast  to  brow, 
And  like  the  ebbing  tides  that  sink  for  pleasure, 

The  quietudes  of  sleep  were  passing  now. 

Sure  of  this  blessedness  I  dare  avow : 
The  wakening  rose  upon  her  with  a  tide 

Irradiant,  quivering  through  the  bosom-snow. 
Dear  lips,  they  touch  to  mine  for  joys  that  glide. 
'  Faithful/  she  said ;  then  slipped  into  my  arms,  full  bride. 

XI. 

'Now,  be  thou  good  to  me  and  hold  me  still, 

For  I  am  wakening  down  into  my  feet ; 
And  in  my  bosom  is  a  kissing-hill, 

That  rises  for  the  day's  bestowing  sweet ; 

And  in  the  brain  are  little  fires,  that  greet 
The  eyes  to  kindle  for  the  day's  advance ; 

And  I  am  quickening  with  the  pleasure-heat, 
By  joys  that  in  the  zone  make  circling  dance.' — 
The  mirrors  in  her  palms  showed  open  countenance. 


STAR-FLOWERS. 
XII. 

There  is  a  science  of  true  palmistry. 

Earth  knows  as  nothing  of  the  lady's  hand. 
Past,  present,  future  of  eternity 

May  open,  through  its  mirror  to  expand. 

'See  there,'  she  said,  'the  ancient  Silver  Land.' 
The  picture  touched  into  the  visual  sense : 

I  kissed  through  myriad  powers,  a  woven  band  : 
By  visioniiigs  mysterious  and  immense, 
The  Silver  Age  that  morn  through  ours  made  immanence. 

XIII. 

She  laid  her  palm  in  the  vibrating  hollow 

That  meets  the  breast ;  the  Silver  Age  gave  play. 
I  thought  of  when  our  Father  was  Apollo 

And  shone  resplendent  in  the  morning's  ray. 

Her  palm  kissed  in  the  plexus  as  to  say, 
And  her  pure  innocence  led  sweet  dispense. 

I  sought  to  rise,  a  bridegroom  golden-gay : 
She  said,  '  Not  so ;  from  raptures  too  intense 
Hold  me  a  little  while,  thy  penny  for  expense.' 

XIV. 

Her  face  for  merriment  commenced  to  dimple ; 

She  lifted,  as  a  little  to  uncover; 
Then  silver  bells  she  made  to  ring,  to  tinkle 

Out  of  her  finger-tips,  '  0  lover,  lover, 

Look  through  thy  bride-girl  to  the  Light  above  her.' 
So  through  her  mystery  I  saw  the  Morn, — 

Lord-Lady  shining, — and  the  radiance  wove  her 
From  inmost  outwardly,  thus  to  adorn. 
She  said,  'Now  you  may  rise,  the  day  is  in  me  born.' 

vi2 


10  STAR-FLOWERS. 

1. 
MESSAGE. 

Needs  but  a  little  ease,  a  little  rest ; 

Then  from  its  agonies  my  shade  will  hest. 

But  rest  is  hard  to  find  and  vain  to  keep, 

Where  sorrowings  are  twined  from  deep  to  deep* 

Love  me  a  little  then,  dear  friends  below : 

Love  opes  the  song-vein  whence  the  numbers  flow. 

The  social  wreath  that  twines  my  shadowed  rod 
Lifts  from  enclustering  vines  the  grapes  of  God. 
All  in  Earth's  arid  soil  play  glimmering  fires. 
All  where  the  Peoples  toil  hang  viewless  lyres, 
Waiting  but  for  the  breath  that  bears  God's  glee, 
To  thrill  the  space  beneath  with  melody.    . 

All  on  Earth's  stony  cliffs  that  rise  forlorn, 
Are  sculptured  hieroglyphs  to  meet  the  morn, — 
Statues  of  stately  thought  with  solar  eyes, — 
Till  they  the  beams  have  caught  from  God's  uprise. 
Deep  in  the  bowery  glens  where  streamlets  glide, 
Robed  all  in  silver  vails  the  coy  nymphs  hide. 

Hark !  'tis  the  silvan  horn  of  rustic  Pan. 
Glees  in  his  breast  are  born  for  coming  man ; 
For  now  the  serpent's  trail,  its  poisoned  heat, 
That  pierced  till  life  grew  faint  at  Sorrow's  feet, 
And  made  the  paths  accursed  where  lovers  led, 
Fade  like  a  dream,  dispersed  from  Morning's  bed. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  11 

THE   EIGHTH    SENSE:     OCCULT   NATURE. 

Man  is  an  instrument  of  many  chords. 

The  sevenfold  senses,  in  one  octave  playing, 
Build  the  eighth  sense, — a  grandeur  that  affords 

Vigor  to  penetrate  through  time's  delaying, 

And  summon  from  the  rock,  for  the  obeying, 
The  sprites  who  weave  their  life-work  in  the  stone ; 

They  from  whose  fingers  forms  the  gold  by  spraying ; 
In  Nature's  occult  realms  who  toil  unknown ; 
Who  wreathe  the  crystal  gems,  art- work  of  Nature's  throne. 

XVI. 

A  Nature  folds  in  Nature,  occulted, 

Wrought  in  pale  crystal,  beautiful  beyond 
Dreams  that  the  artist's  fervid  thought  have  fed ; 

Palaced,  cathedraled  or  pavilioned ; 

Quivering  with  life,  as  wakening  to  respond 
Where  the  swift  breathings  of  the  Word-fire  go. 

I  entered  paths  that  ope  for  lady-wand 
Through  secret  arch-ways  far  in  Lilimo'. 
A  sacred  Lady  led,  that  I  the  way  might  know. 

XVII. 

There  the  rock-spirits,  idealities 

Who  think  and  feel  but  in  their  art  alone, 

Wrought  in  the  occult  nature-play ;  their  eyes 
Of  calm  intelligence  embodied  shone 
Through  hands  that  turn  and  turn,  evolving  stone 

By  its  prime  essence,  white  as  snow-flakes  given, 
Or  the  pearled  hail  o'er  wintry  landscape  sown, 

On  the  pale  wings  of  arctic  tempests  driven, 

Yet  strangely  all  diffused  in  silvery  light  of  heaven. 


12  STAR-FLOWERS. 

XVIII. 

SHE  who  was  with  me  spake,  '  Our  daughter  broke 
The  spell  that  held  this  nature-woman's  realm.7 

She  willed,  its  silent  mystery  to  evoke ; 

She  touched  a  stone  man  then,  and  spake,  '  Unhelm ! ' 
But  he  came  forth  a  tree  in  shape,  an  elm 

Or  oak  or  maple  of  the  northern  clime, 

Loaded  as  when  the  wet  snows  overwhelm ; — 

A  talking  tree,  that  said,  "Tis  not  yet  Time/ 

She  breathed  upon  the  tree  warm  through  its  frozen  rime. 

XIX. 

Then  the  tree  occulted  for  Her,  till  light 

Of  faintest  emerald  began  to  show. 
She  touched  him  by  the  will-force  of  Her  might, 

And  the  brown  bark  shaped  on  his  limbs  to  grow. 

'Good  tree,  good  tree!7  She  said,  as  whispering  low, 
And  he  made  ope  to  breathe  through  shining  pores. 

She  led  a  vapor,  wafting  o'er  him  so, 
And  the  tree  walked,  feeling  to  find  the  doors 
That,  maybe,  open  on  to  Earth's  exterior  floors. 

XX. 

'This,'  spake  the  Lady,  'is  a  tree  of  good, 

That  should  be  seen  in  Earth's  new  garden-land. 

Ages  might  pass,  growing  in  this  cold  flood, 
Ere  he  could  shape  to  that  material  stand : 
But  She  who  hastens  states  puts  forth  the  hand. 

He  will  involve  into  an  earthly  tree, 

And,  organizing  through  its  cells,  expand 

And  germinate  for  births  of  forestry. 

His  fruit  shall  hold  the  gift  of  love-in-chastity.' 


STAR-FLOWERS.  13 

XXI. 

Then  by  a  grace  She  touched  into  the  ball. 

I  laughed  to  her  for  joy  of  this  strange  thing. 
In  the  eighth  sense  I  felt  the  rise  and  fall 

Of  the  tree's  life,  springing  and  autumning  ; 

But  Issa  cried,  'Nuts,  nuts!7  she  wove  a  ring 
Of  speech-fire  through  the  pulses  of  the  brain. 

I  answered,  " Mother!"  rising  as  a  king: 
My  bosom  lifted  in  a  fiery  pain : 
I  clasped  upon  the  tree  to  hold  him  and  to  gain. 

XXII. 

The  tree  resisted  me ;  and  then  She  said, 

' These  nature-things  all  strive  ere  they  submit: 

Hold,  or  your  space-form  will  drop  sudden  dead/ 
The  tree  writhed  like  a  serpent  of  the  pit  : 
He  coiled,  he  prest,  with  cold  keen  force  he  bit ; 

Then  all  at  once  lay  languid  as  a  worm. 
She  spake,  '  'Tis  all  an  exercise  of  wit. 

The  laughing  man  can  hold  all  things  in  term/ 

She  smiled  into  the  tree,  and  he  stood  calm  and  firm. 

XXIII. 

' There's  life  in  all  things,'  said  the  Mother  then: 
'  Evoke  his  life  ; — life  may  be  touched  by  love  : 

Even  as  trees  are  Earth's  poor  natural  men.' 
I  loved  the  tree ;  his  pulse  began  to  shove 
And  pushed  to  budded  features,  and  a  dove 

Flew  from  the  Mother's  bosom,  and  it  swept 
Circling  and  circling  by  the  charm  enwove. 

The  tree  sighed  for  the  bird ;  it  almost  wept, 

Till,  when  the  bird  touched  in,  with  quivering  love  it  leapt. 


14  STAR^FLOWERS. 

XXIV. 

"Thou  son/  She  spake,  'this  lesson  take  to  heart. 

Earth's  men  are  trees,  in  nature-time  that  grow. 
They  plan,  they  build,  by  Nature's  occult  art, 

Faiths,  customs,  empires,  all  as  woven  snow. 

There  is  no  real  in  the  thing  they  know. 
Theirs  is  an  art-vail,  in  illusion  spun. 

When  Earth  is  opened  as  this  void  below, 
Your  Issa  to  her  doing  will  have  won : 
Mankind,  who  are  as  trees,  will  blossom  to  the  sun. 

XXV. 

'  In  airs  of  Nature's  atmosphere  moves  light, 
Where  natural  fire  alone  makes  penetration.' 

I  shuddered ;  then  grew  nerved  to  sudden  might, 
And  cried,  "'Tis  breath  that  leads  illumination." 
The  Mother  said,  '  Yes,  by  an  emanation  : 

If  you  can  breathe  from  Us  till  air  holds  fire, — ' 

I  laughed;  She  spake,  'Nay,  hear  the  termination, — 

The  nature-air  itself  will  then  respire, 

And  meet  you  in  a  glee,  and  thrill  you  as  a  lyre. 

XXVI. 

'  So  transposition  works  for  transposition  : 

All  things  change  slowly  round  the  changing  man : 
The  light  will  change  till  Heaven  shines  full  to  vision ; 

Makes  openings  then,  leads  in  your  Lilistan. 

In  Us,  One-Twain,  hold  for  the  service-plan, 
Since  We  are  in  you,  henceforth  and  for  aye.' 

I  answered,  "  Mother ! "  laughing  so ;  a  fan 
Of  heavenly  odors  smote  my  breast  for  play. 
I  laughed  again;  She  smiled,  'The  trees  shall  yet  obey. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  15 

XXVII. 

"Tis  a  poor  feast  where  there  is  no  rejoicing, 

And  a  poor  God  who  cannot  spin  a  glee, 
Making  a  bliss  upon  the  lip  for  voicing, 

And  leading  life  into  its  melody. 

'Tis  a  cold  God  who  cannot  melt  the  sea 
Of  frozen  grief  that  holds  mankind  in  death. 

God  were  not  God  did  He  not  hear  to  thee.' 
I  laughed  again ;  the  Mother  caught  my  breath : 
She  smiled  to  me ;  She  spake,  '  Thus  trouble  vanisheth. 

XXVIII. 

'For  We,  One-Twain,  move  in  a  glee  enafter. 

'Thou  shalt  be  merry,'  is  Our  new  commanding; 
And  death  shall  be  extinguished  in  the  laughter ; 

And  darkness  perish  from  the  understanding  ; 

And  man's  right  heart  lift  for  the  woman's  handing, 
Till  We  make  wedlock  in  the  plexial  glee ; 

And  there  shall  be  a  Word-staff  for  enwanding ; 
And  the  great  whirl  shall  fashion,  so  to  be 
As  if  the  world  were  wrought  in  solar  circles  three.' 

TIME-SHADOW:   LAUGHTER-LIGHT. 

She  led  me  carefully,  my  steps  returning, 

For  now  it  was  high  noon :  She  wrought  a  bliss  : 
I  worshiped  Her,  the  Lady  of  the  Morning  : 

My  lips  into  Her  feet  made  praise  by  kiss. 

Sweet  was  the  air  of  Lilimo',  I  wis. 
There  Lily  met  me,  '  Faithful,  look  not  old  : 

You  found  the  time-years  in  that  dim  abyss.' — 
Like  as  Tithonus,  gray  and  weary-cold, 
My  lucid  form  had  changed,  all  whitened  from  its  gold. 


16  STAR-FLOWEKS. 

XXX. 

I  laughed  to  say,  "  Not  Father  Comfort  surely, 
But  Father  Time  a-creeping  with  his  scythe  ! " 

It  seemed  so  comical  a  jest,  yet  purely 
Original :  I  touched  into  her  hive 
Of  bosom  sweets, — but  something  was  alive ; 

The  gold  bees  plumed  upon  my  wrinkled  hand. 
I  laughed  to  see  the  airy  insects  drive 

Their  multitude,  all  as  a  pleasure-wand  : 

I  shook  with  laughter  then,  till  strengths  came  forth  to 
stand. 

XXXI. 

A  storm  of  merry  music  entered  me, 

That  settled  into  serious  sweet  delight. 
So  Lily  led  anewT  the  royalty : 

Old  age  retired,  'twas  lost  in  manhood's  might, 

Though  still  the  locks  were  sprinkled  silver-white. 
Then  gradual  youth  beamed  through  the  manly  style, 

And  joy  returned  with  love-gifts  that  requite 
The  burden-bearers  :  all  the  realm  gave  smile. 
Out  of  an  argent  pool  a  wave-nymph  rose  the  while, 

XXXII. 

Like  Aphrodite  from  the  adrian  foam ; 

For  this  was  deep  in  Lilimo's  pearled  hollow. 
The  silver  love-waves  warbled  whilst  they  clomb, 

By  kissing  billows  wreathing  so  to  follow  : 

Some  rose  grotesque  as  tritons  that  might  wallow : 
What  strange,  fantastic  elf- wives  of  the  sea ! 

She  touched  me ;  '  Thou  whose  Sire  was  our  Apollo/ 
So  came  the  words,  'warm  this  cold  spray  for  me.' 
My  breast  thrilled  as  a  lyre ;  its  fires  wrought  melody. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  17 

PLAYING     E  L  E  M  E  N  T  ARIES. 

' Woman  is  Wit:  the  harmless  mischiefs  please  her,' 
Said  Lily-Sue ;  'the  monkeys  have  a  show  : 

A  'Little  Bethel'  or  an  'Ebenezer' 

Stands  in  their  village,  much  as  one  below, 
And  they  play  earth-time  in  their  memory-flow. 

Come  and  see  'Zion  Corners,  way  down  east.' ' 
A  wise  ape  met  us,  all  in  sable.     Lo ! 

Saint  Calvin  surely,  all  adorned,  increased, 

Stood  in  the  formal  style  of  the  uplifted  beast. 

XXXIV. 

One  of  the  Adepts  of  the  Silver  Time 

Had  fashioned  in  his  brain  this  theorem. 
The  monkey  cried,  '0  sinners  of  the  prime, 

Think  not  ye  long  shall  flourish  on  the  stem.' — 

I  laughed,  but  Lily  checked  me.     With  a  'hem' 
As  Doctor  Calvin  might  have  made  before, 

He  sniffed  at  me  to  smell  Jerusalem ; 
Then  spake,  'Alas,  young  friend!  seek  Zion's  door; 
If  you  are  one  elect  the  faith  may  so  restore.' 

XXXV. 

Then  Lily  formed  a  peppermint  and  gave 

The  sweetmeat  to  the  animal :  a  groan 
Heaved  from  his  belly  and  he  cried,  'Thou  slave, 

What  paganisms  fashion  to  thy  bone ! 

Know'st  thou,  the  devil  sits  upon  a  throne, 
Like  as  a  splendid  glorious  golden  man, 

And  many  heathen  worship  him  and  tone 
His  praises  in  that  wicked  Lilistan. 
This  generation  so  far  to  perdition  ran/     . 
vi3 


18  STAR-FLOWERS. 

XXXVI. 

She  touched  the  beast,  with  '  Jacko,  run  and  play/ 

The  ape  broke  loose  to  all-fours  merrily  : 
His  theorem  closed  in  for  that  sweet  day, 

So  he  with  nimble  feet  made  for  a  tree. 

Climbing  far  up  the  pillared  greenery, 
He  gathered  nuts  and  dropped  them  at  her  feet. 

But  Lily  smiled,  saying  right  pleasantly, 
'The  Earth  below  holds  for  a  memory-seat 
In  beasts,  who  posture  so  the  world-tale  to  repeat. 

XXXVII. 

'  Religion,  by  an  animal  intent, 

Weaves  in  the  natural  mankind  its  play. 
Often  the  adepts  wisely  circumvent 

Wrongs  that  ascend  through  savage  faith  to  slay, 

By  means  of  elementaries  who  ray 
From  theorems.' — A  ram  the  thicket  caught. 

Lily  made  motions :  joyful  to  obey 
The  ram  uprose,  a  prelate's  posture  wrought, 
Extended  his  fore-limb  and  for  an  alms  besought. 

XXXVIII. 

Upon  her  lips  she  formed  a  sugar-plum  : 

He  bowed  with  reverence  to  her  dainty  hand ; 

Seemed  for  the  courtesy  quite  overcome ; 

Then,  like  a  bishop  fresh  from  Albion's  land, 
Assumed  an  altitude  of  grave  command, 

And  wove  his  style  in  full  canonicals, 
As  York  or  Canterbury  brave  and  grand. 

Episcopacy  lives  in  animals, 

And  prebendaries,  show  by  cattle  from  the  stalls, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  19 

XXXIX. 

But  Lily  touched  the  reverend  ram  :  methinks 

It  were  a  goodly  sight  could  mortals  view. 
He  changed  the  fashion  and  with  merry  winks 

Showed  the  arch-rabbi,  every  inch  a  jew. 

A  sacred  knife  out  of  his  pouch  he  drew, 
And  made  to  play  as  those  who  circumcise. 

Surely,  the  old  time  postures  in  the  new, 
Till  in  the  harmless  mimicry  it  dies, 
Lost  in  the  frolic  sport  that  tickles  to  the  eyes. 

XL. 

I  laughed  :  a  love-bird  fluttered  to  her  breast ; 

She  sped  a  joyous  twinkle  into  me, 
And  touched  the  bird's  bill :  stirred  its  feathered  crest : 

The  bird  enlarged,  with  solemn  gravity, 

For  the  evangel  of  the  Parrotry. 
In  a  small  voice  such  words  he  made  escape, — 

'  Jewels  and  lace  lead  maids  to  harlotry : 
Those  who  would  fly  perdition  clothe  in  crape ; 
For  silk  they  sackcloth  wear,  and  ribbons  change  for  tape.' 


2. 


LAUGHTER    SONG. 


I  love,  I  serve,  I  chant,  I  cheer : 
I  calm,  I  comfort,  I  endear. 
I  shake  my  songs  to  earth  for  glee, 
In  blossoms  of  the  laughter  tree. 


20  STAR-FLOWERS. 

I  beautify,  I  build,  I  bless, 
Till  hearts  for  joy  God's  Heart  caress, 
And  Lilimola's  violet  hill 
O'ercomes  the  proud  conventicle. 


I  spring,  I  spray,  all  summer-sweet ; 
I  lead  the  lays  by  dancing  feet ; 
Then  sprinkle  dews  of  still  delight, 
O'erleaning  as  the  summer  night. 


With  harmless  genial  merriment 
The  sacred  solemn  theme  is  blent ; 
It  falls  with  kiss-drops  in  the  rain, 
To  wake  with  bloom  the  arid  plain. 


The  joy  that  in  my  being  grew 
At  last  made  wings  ;  at  last  it  flew  ; 
Then  lifted  in  a  swarm  of  glees, 
To  pierce  mankind  by  ecstasies. 


'  Laugh  and  grow  fat/  saith  earthly  tongue. 
Laugh  and  grow  good ;  grow  kindly  young 
She  whose  pure  throne  is  all  a  pearl, 
Appears  in  heaven,  GOD'S  Laughing  Girl. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  21 

THE     LAUGHING    ANGEL:     MEMORIES. 

Blessed  be  God,  blessed  in  merriment ! 

Full  service  in  full  cheer  makes  overflowing. 
Powers  that  for  labor  breathless  lean  o'erspent, 

Rise  in  God's  joyous  breast  to  splendid  showing. 

Thou  Earth  distrest,  thy  joy  is  growing,  growing : 
The  Laughing  Angel  opes  thy  tent  forlorn : 

Curtains  of  sackcloth  gleam  for  gold-light  glowing : 
He  wakes  the  dreamer  with  his  rapturous  horn  ; 
1  Tra  la  tra  li  ra  la: — kiss  Laughter  in  the  morn.' 

XLII. 

In  my  small  youth  an  earthly  priest  revised  me 

To  cruel  postures  from  his  hebrew  god ; 
Then  in  the  Mohawk  river  he  baptized  me. 

First  through  the  solid  ice  they  toiled  to  prod, — 

For  winter  ruled  by  his  mosaic  rod, — 
Then  dipped  me  whilst  I  shivered  as  a  ghost. 

Sure  my  young  soul,  grown  from  Love's  violet  sod, 
Shuddered  in  fear  upon  that  iron-bound  coast ; 
But  it  was  <  saved  from  hell,'  and  Zion  made  a  boast. 

XLIII. 

And  Libbie,  winsome  convert,  she  was  dipped, — 

A  young  canary  feathered  gold  to  fly, — 
And  called  a  saintess,  being  fellowshiped 

By  the  stern  priest  who  preached,  'Why  will  ye  die, 

Ye  sinners  ?  God  is  coming  down  the  sky, 
A  locomotive  engine,  and  his  bell 

Is  rung  by  Jesus  :  hear  his  warning  cry, 
'Clear  ye  the  track,  for,  if  ye  still  rebel, 
Jehovah's  fiery  wheels  will  grind  ye  down  to  hell.' ' 


22  S  T  A  R  -  F  LOWERS. 

XLIV. 

Dear  Libbie,  sweet,  delicious,  happy  'sinner'; 

This  god  jehovah  speared  her  on  his  spit, 
All  as  a  cyclops  who  would  make  a  dinner 

On  such  young  hearts,  well  roasted  in  his  pit. 

Ah !  her  young  life  was  by  that  serpent  bit ; — 
The  miracle  of  goddesshood,  in  play 

For  piety  and  sentiment  and  wit, 
And  all  the  sacred  virtues  that  array 
The  virgin  soul  for  Heaven,  chilled  from  that  bitter  day. 

XLV. 

1  Forbear,  forget,  forgive!' — all  these  I  do. 

I  was  baptized  :  the  life-staff  well-nigh  broken. 
The  '  father,  son  and  holy  ghost '  made  view 

To  see  the  boy  in  ice-cold  water  soaken. — 

Apollo  wrought  a  brave  revenge,  out-spoken, 
For  that :  my  voice  by  many  a  music  souled, 

And  Faith's  hypocrisies  have  been  uncloaken  : 
For  I  baptize  with  cold,  with  deadly  cold, 
The  Faith  through  Libbie's  life  perdition's  lie  that  rolled. 

FORE  SHOWINGS. 

1  Vengeance  is  Mine,'  saith  God, — the  God  of  Laughter. 

Men  shall  stand  joyful,  meeting  in  the  streets, 
And  say,  'Well,  we  have  dropt  from  time's  black  rafter 

And  fall'n  deep  down,  yet  here  no  hell  makes  heats : 

All  womanhood  holds  God  for  mercy-seats ; 
On  every  brow  she  gems  the  bridal  crown  ; 

Through  her  oceanic  breast  we  see  the  fleets 
Of  inspirations  to  our  shores  bear  down  ; 
Whilst  God  walks  in  our  midst,  a  Young  Man  without 
frown. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  ^o 

XLVII. 

'  The  reverend  prelates  now  are  gospel  cooks, 

And  they  convert  good  grain  to  sacred  cates, 
And  from  the  pages  of  their  holy  books 

They  teach  the  sense  to  feed  on  delicates, 

That  we  may  so  receive  as  God  awaits ; — 
He,  the  Arch  Giver,  being  served  and  pleased. 

Lo,  God,  the  Poor  Man,  stood  without  the  gates 
Whilst  in  old  time  the  gaudy  lusts  appeased ; 
But  God  is  now  for  cheer,  through  womanhood  released. 

XLVIII. 

'  We  thought  of  maids  as  dainty  darling  sinners 

Whom  we  delighted  in,  though  on  the  path 
Wherein  they  flew,  the  charm,  the  rapture-bringers, 

Followed  Jehovah  with  a  scourge  of  wrath. 

We  thought  that  she  who  giveth  all  she  hath, 
And  in  man's  life  is  the  most  precious  thing, 

Might  show  hereafter  all  a  blast,  a  scath, 
Being  unconverted  to  the  gospeling, 

And  we  might  see  her  writhe,  from  Heaven,  yet  praise  and 
sing. 

XLIX. 

'The  hardest  and  the  cruelest  of  Faiths 

Was  that  the  wicked  Middle  Ages  drew, 
Enveloped  all  in  red  and  fiery  wraiths, 

Begotten  from  the  dream-world  of  the  jew. 

We  dared  not  by  our  love-prayers  to  pursue 
Our  dear  departed ;  yea,  our  household  dead. 

We  dared  not  ask  God's  mercies  to  enview 
The  bosom  that  imparadised  our  bed, 
Or  fold  tHe  babes  that  died ;  babes  oil  her  breasts  that  fed. 


24  STAR-FLOWERS. 

L. 

'We  glimpsed  to  Heaven  through  eyes  of  hebrew  strife ; 

Bride,  bride  no  more,  and  groom  no  more  a  groom ; — 
The  greater,  keener  circumcision-knife 

Cutting  all  manly  honors  in  the  tomb, 

Making  our  souls  as  eunuchs  from  the  womb ; 
Cleaving  from  genius  the  essential  part ; 

Stripping  from  intellect  its  fruitful  bloom, 
And  giving,  for  the  earth  whence  men  depart, 
A  life  without  its  love,  a  home  without  its  heart. 

LI. 

'  Now  we  have  dropped  from  out  old  time's  abyss, 

To  find  we  were  made  fools  of,  and  were  shorn 
Of  the  great  gifts  we  held  in  genesis, 

And  trained  to  grow  hard  stalk  but  hollow  corn  ; 

Ruled  by  that  god  as  by  the  hog-herd's  horn, 
And  driven  as  the  acorn-eating  swine  ; 

Most  miserable,  desolated,  torn 
And  bleeding,  soul  and  body,  like  the  vine 
That  the  wild  boars  break  down  to  spoil  the  coming  wine. 

LIL 

'  Erect  in  form,  on  all-fours  by  the  thought, 

We  ramped  and  ran,  we  made  our  merchandise. 
Not  much  of  God  into  our  lives  we  caught ; 

Yet  what  of  God  we  felt  we  did  despise, 

Being  imprisoned  in  a  net  of  lies. 
God  was  to  us  a  concentrated  jew ; 

Most  righteous,  verily,  in  cruelties ; 
Most  merciful,  while  aye  his  vengeance  drew 
To  an  eternal  flame  for  torments  ever  new. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  25 

LIIL 

'E'en  the  good  Christ,  he  shone  to  us  afar 

But  as  the  prophet  of  man's  anguishings, 
Holding  his  dreadful  parent's  wrath  to  bar, 

Whilst  the  swift  doom  swept  on  with  fiery  wings. — 

Dear  Christ !  how  could  we  hold  him  in  the  stings  ? 
How  strip  the  God-Word  of  the  hebrew  skin  ? 

Our  elements  were  poisoned  to  their  springs 
By  the  great  social,  sexual,  saintly  sin, 
Engendering  larvous  faiths,  corrupting  where  they  win. 

LIV. 

'There  is  a  core  of  truth  in  christianism : 

Tis  base,  'tis  baneful,  but  'twas  born  of  bliss. 
'Twas  a  boy  babe  spoiled  in  the  circumcision, 

Then  flung  dishonored  far  through  time's  abyss, 

To  weave  himself  a  robe  of  bitterness ; 
To  grow  among  the  lions  and  the  pards ; 

To  feel  imprisoned  hungers  through  him  hiss, 
Craving  the  holiness  his  shape  discards ; 
To  thrill  to  vain  desires  in  Earth's  prophetic  bards.' 

TWILIGHT     OF     THE     GODS:      THE     BEAUTIFUL. 

Night  darkens  o'er  Valhalla ;  now  draws  on 

The  time  foretold,  'the  twilight  of  the  gods.' 
Huge  Odin  swoons  and,  like  a  skeleton, 

Wastes  the  vast  form,  wrought  all  of  battle-rods. 

Now  giant  Thor,  red  from  long  slaughter,  nods ; 
The  sleepy  eyes  drip  tears  instead  of  gore. 

Balder  the  Beautiful  lifts  through  the  clods 
That  lords  and  ladies  once  for  vestures  wore  : 
The  Sun  makes  morn  again ;  Balder  is  young  once  more, 
vi  4 


26  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LVL 

Now  mother  Frigga,  she  whose  blue  eyes  glistened 

Till  skies  caught  azure  from  her  splendid  tear ; 
She  who  did  grow  so  ancient  and  enwizeiied, 

As  hoary  Time  in  woman  to  appear ; 

She  who  sat  crooning  by  the  planet's  bier, — 
Dissolves  her  age  into  the  aged  men 

Who  pierced  her  through  her  daughters  by  the  spear. 
With  stony  feet  she  turns  the  world-wheel ;  then 
The  woven  fate-winds  ply :  she  finds  the  prime  again. 

LVII. 

Balder  the  Beautiful  has  risen  ;  arisen 
Even  through  human  nature,  and  I  claim 

The  splendors  of  his  genius  to  unprison, 
For  poesies  that  set  the  world  a-flame. — 
The  Father  said,  'Thou  son,  there  is  a  game 

That  two  can  play  at  in  this  verse  of  thine. 
I  make  a  shame  to  overcome  the  shame : 

I  will  put  reason  in  a  cup  of  wine, 

And  thou  shalt  drink  for  Me,  tasting  of  the  divine/ 

LVIII. 

I  drank ;  then  passed  the  cup  to  ladygood, 

Arid  thence  it  was  returned,  and  words  were  given, 
Wherein  the  Beautiful  wrought  blossomhood. 

In  ancient  faiths  the  Mother-thought  found  haven. 

The  Mother  hath  Her  image  reengraven 
Where'er  the  Beautiful  displayed  the  bow : 

Unto  the  last  she  hath  by  Beauty  striven : 
Lovers  and  Poets  thus  the  mystery  show ; 
But  as  a  rosebud  found  enavalanched  in  snow, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  27 

LIX. 

Ever,  forever,  Beauty  the  imperial 

Moves  by  a  mystery,  still  to  circumvent 
The  fallen  faiths,  sunk  prone  from  the  aerial, 

Degrading  manhood  to  a  base  content 

With  surfacings  and  with  their  foul  intent. 
Beauty,  though  by  a  village  maid's  advance, 

May  lead  the  youth,  till  he  stands  eminent 
Where  the  war-horses  of  the  day-king  prance, 
And  the  swift  chariot  wheels  beam  in  the  solar  glance. 

LX. 

The  Beautiful  despise  not ;  'tis  the  charm 

Wherein  the  One-Twain  weave  life's  universe. 

The  lip,  the  bosom  and  the  rounded  arm 
Delight  the  eyes  of  God  so  to  immerse 
Full  pleasantness  within  them,  and  to  purse 

The  wish-thought  of  the  Infinite  anew. 
God  ever  seeks  His  Love  to  reimburse, 

For  all  the  charm  that  through  Her  gifts  He  drew : 

So  ages  in  their  flight  by  loveliness  pursue. 

LXI. 

God  loves  the  beautiful,  for  Beauty  ever 

Rises  into  His  Genius,  making  sweet. 
The  earth  of  God  is  plenished  by  its  river ; 

So  the  One-Twain  by  full  perfections  meet, 

And  in  their  union  build  man's  music-seat. 
My  thoughts  are  driven  by  a  radiant  whirl  : 

The  heart  of  Lilistan  in  mine  gives  beat. 
Droop  thy  proud  banners,  Earth  ;  they  shall  infurl. 
God  the  Young  Man  comes  forth,  leading  His  Goddess  Girl. 


28  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LXIL 

One  spake  to  me,  '0  king,  thou  art  transported, 

And  utter  things  of  too  much  stateliness.' 
I  answered,  "Nay,  the  Truth  that  long  I  courted 

Now  makes  to  me  as  brides  when  they  undress. 

So  the  imprisoned  wisdoms  leave  duress." 
Responded  he,  'Thou  wilt  be  damned,  no  doubt, 

According  to  the  creed  that  folk  profess 
Who  hold  to  faith  but  by  a  nature-sprout  : 
The  antlers  of  the  elks  grow  from  the  rabble  rout.' 

A     DISCOURSE     OF     RELIGION. 

They  make  in  Heaven  a  jest  of  christianism  ; 

Superb  superlatives  of  ridicule 
Heaping  upon  the  mighty  nature-schism, 

That  builds  for  the  ecclesiastic  rule. 

Said  one,  'That  christianism  is  a  mule 
'Twixt  hebrew  ass  and  a  paganic  steed  : 

'Tis  barren,  therefore :  it  seems  pious-cool  : 
Not  men,  its  loins  they  do  but  specters  breed. — 
Beside  the  tree  of  life  'tis  but  a  poisonous  weed.' 

LXIV. 

I  spake,  "  Now  you  are  splendid  and  superb." 

He  cried,  'Nay,  nay,  I  virtue  in  my  stones, 
And  through  my  body  grows  full  many  an  herb 

That  kings  might   profit  by  upon  their  thrones. 

The  chasteness  of  our  God  by  me  intones, 
And  I  have  thought  full  often  that  a  verse 

Might  well  be  woven  where  the  planet  groans, 
Till  godly  men  should  christianism  curse, 
As  the  Sweet  Good,  transposed  to  serve  the  worst  of  worse. 


STAR-FLOWERS*  29 

LXV. 

'  Look  at  it :  Christ  taught  simple  Communism. 

They  make  the  convert  a  communicant ; 
They  dip  him  into  Christ  by  the  baptism. — 

Like  hungry  cormorants  with  eyes  aslant 

They  pierce  the  communists,  whose  bosoms  pant 
To  realize :  aye,  never  they  forgive 

The  man  who  is  a  real  hierophant ; 
Who  lives  in  fact  as  they  by  seemings  live ; 
To  whom  the  Savior-will  is  made  imperative. 

LXVI. 

'  We  gather  up  the  martyrs  of  the  age ; 

We  shew  them  where  it  was  and  why  they  failed. 
They  but  sang  ballads  in  the  prison-cage : 

If  Freedom  smote  their  eyes  the  vision  quailed  : 

They  pierced   not  Superstition  where  it  sailed, — 
The  huge  black  vampire,  vailing  Heaven  from  sight : 

They  shrank  into  the  shadowings  and  paled ; 
They  never  dared  to  touch  that  thing  aright, 
Whereby  the  Living  God  draws  man  to  His  delight. 

LXVII. 

'  Now  I  talk  pious :  Wesley,  that  good  fellow, 

Planted  a  seed  that  saints  call  '  Methodism.' 
'Twas  first  a  calf,  now  'tis  a  bull  to  bellow  : 

'Tis  a  huge  horn,  pushed  through  the  circumcision ; 

A  Jewish  paganism  in  revision  : 
It  plays  its  fool  game  for  the  middle  class ; 

A  gospel  with  a  universal  mission, 
To  save  the  world  as  with  a  looking-glass 
Where  souls  to  jesus  gaze  ere  to  his  arms  they  pass. 


30  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LXVIII. 

1  How  they  would  kick,  if  He  his  arms  enfolded ! 

How  they  would  curse  if  He  but  willed  his  will, 
And  said  to  them,  'Go  ye  to  be  remolded 

In  righteousness,  by  holiness  to  fill 

The  world :  '—the  swine  look  up  to  Heaven  for  swill, 
And  it  to  them  is  but  the  consummation 

Of  the  self-life  whereby  their  instincts  thrill. 
They  hope  self-life,  led  to  its  coronation, 
*And  Christ  held  theirs  by  creed,  but- ne'er  by  immination. 

LXIX. 

'  Eeformer  Wesley, — Truth  adorn  his  brows ! 

He  made  God-Christ  a  cuckold ;  Church,  the  bride, 
The  pure,  immaculate  and  wishful  spouse, 

Free  to  all  boors  of  all  the  country  side ; 

Free  as  a  mare  all  cavaliers  might  ride 
Who  wear  gilt  spurs,  gay  coats  and  plumed  chapeaux. 

Yet  Methodism  hath  a  goodness-tide ; 
The  Beauty  of  the  Truth  gives  overflows, 
Even  as  morning  lights  o'er  doom  or  death-beds  close. 

LXX. 

'The  narrow-brained,  broad-bottomed  sectarist 

Enjoys  religion  as  he  doth  his  ale. 
'  Saved  by  the  blood,'  he  ever  will  insist 

That  social  righteousness  is  no  avail. 

As  well  might  he  swing  pussy  by  the  tail 
Through  heavenly  gates,  changed  to  a  goddess  girl. 

Such  faith  revives  the  fetish  old  and  stale. 
'Tis  Africa,  arisen  by  its  whirl  : 
'Tis  but  the  dunghill  cock,  discoursing  of  the  pearl. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  31 

LXXI. 

1  Religion  is  no  strumpet  of  the  streets, 

For  egoists  to  harrow  at  their  will. 
Is  there  a  man  who  glows  by  lustful  heats  ? 

She  vails  from  his  base  eyes,  unvisioned  still. 

God  is  revealed  on  woman's  holy  hill : 
If  man  profanes  there,  where  he  should  adore ; 

Denying  where  he  meets  the  miracle; 
Deflowering  where  he  should  by  God  reflore, 
From  God  he  is  eclipsed;  the  dooms  are  darkening  o'er.' 

LXXII. 

The  Fates  are  in  the  song :  it  must  not  tarry 

Nor  linger  by  the  way-side  gathering  fruit ; 
Nor  seek  by  honied  airs  the  truth  to  marry 

To  subterfuges  that  the  heavens  refute. 

I  weave,  I  wing,  whilst  death  is  in  pursuit. 
'Tis  hard  to  penetrate  the  hammered  mail ; 

'Tis  hard  to  say  where  ages  have  been  mute ; 
The  song  is  born  as  if  through  iron  hail. — 
God's  Mary  did  bring  forth :  so  must  the  verse  prevail. 

LXXIII. 

Why  should  we  call  those  myths  '  but  myths '  that  bear 

The  Faiths  that  mightiest  ages  held  sublime, 
Yet  shield  a  superstition,  fierce  to  dare, 

That  locks  the  intellect  in  space  and  time ; 

That  clasps  no  secret  of  the  golden  prime ; 
That  bastardizes  in  the  planet's  brain ; 

That,  with  the  apathy  of  ill  supine, 
Deadens  upon  mankind,  and  makes  profane 
The  holiness  of  life,  and  meets  God  by  disdain  ? 


32  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LXXIV. 

What  was  Augustine  but  an  african 

Who  knew  of  Christ  but  in  a  superstition  ? 
What  was  dread  Calvin  but  a  frozen  man 

Holding  eternity  by  a  perdition  ? 

And  what  are  they,  who  make  their  ghostly  mission 
From  Augustine  or  Calvin  to  rehearse, 

But  scribes  that  multiply  an  evil  vision, 
And  bind  the  live  mankind  within  a  hearse, 
And  fire  upon  its  heart  by  falsehoods  wrought  in  curse  ? 

LXXV. 

Now  Faith  expires :  the  wisdoming  hath  perished. 

Christ  is  obliterated  from  mankind ; 
Save  where  sweet  solitary  souls  have  cherished 

A  courage  and  a  virtue,  to  unbind 

The  word  of  His  Pure  Being  in  the  mind. 
The  great  gross  multitude  knows  naught  of  Him  : 

It  tosses  like  a  cloud-wreath  on  the  wind  : 
Its  rains  hold  ashes,  whilst  the  Peoples  dim 
And  darken  to  the  doom,  fierce,  hungry,  gaunt  and  grim. 

LXXVI. 

The  savageness  of  superstition  enters 

From  crypts  and  chancels  to  the  People's  brain  : 

The  heart  grows  fossil  where  the  force  concenters. 
The  age  is  as  a  mother,  bowed  in  pain, 
In  whom  God  forms  to  bearing,  but  in  vain. 

The  hungry  nations  on  their  fetters  press  : 
The  proud  and  mighty  in  one  vast  disdain 

Feast,  whilst  mankind  grown  wild  from  bitterness, 

Feels  for  the  social  tie ;  feels  while  the  faiths  repress, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  33 

LXXVIL 

Men  soon  will  know  if  there  be  God,  or  none. 

If  none  there  be,  expires  this  blood-red  scroll : 
This  shadowed  form  will  find  oblivion ; 

Yea,  like  a  bubble  break  this  laboring  soul, — 

That  lifts  oceanic,  as  by  floods  to  roll ; 
That  seeks  with  bliss  to  permeate  mankind. 

The  living  thunders  waken  to  ensoul  : 
God  being  God,  His  motions  must  unbind : 
God  shall  make  flesh  in  man. ;  man  live,  in  God  enshrined. 

LXXVIII 

Because  the  time  is  brief  the  words  take  wing  : 

Because  the  words  take  wing  the  virtues  leave 
The  shadow-form  that  held  them  wintering  : 

Their  flight  into  man's  bosom  they  achieve. 

Because  they  find  such  entrance  I  unweave 
Powers,  in  the  shadow-frame  that  held  suspense. — 

But  now  I  greet  the  purple  golden  eve, 
And,  looking  from  this  loftier  eminence, 
See  that  a  Will-in-will  is  forming  to  condense, 

LXXIX. 

And  hush  the  shadow  to  a  still  repose. 

The  earth-form  wearies  of  its  posturing, 
As  when  the  chrysalid  feels  sharp  swift  throes, 

That  undulate  its  agitating  ring, 

And  quiver  through  the  sheathed  and  folded  wing, 
And  break  to  little  vapors  in  its  shell. 

So,  in  that  time-shape  where  I  hold  and  cling, 
The  senses  of  a  transposition  tell ; 
The  sense  of  sense  within  their  octave  weaving  well, 
vi5 


34  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LXXX. 

A  sense-mind,  an  aerial  ball  suspended, 

Shapes  in  the  one-twain  hemispheres  of  brain, 
Quivering  with  glowing  lights  till  night  is  ended, 

But  shadowed  for  the  day's  long  labor-pain. 

Each  little  nervelet  thrills  with  a  disdain 
And  horror  of  corruption,  and  I  tread 

As  one  whose  white  feet  leave  a  violet  stain 
Upon  the  floor-ways,  and  pale  mists  inwed 
To  rays  of  purpling  gold  over  the  bosom  spread. 

LXXXI. 

The  body  groweth  pure  and  delicate, 

As  if  the  flesh  had  tasted  innocence, 
And,  firming  sweet,  craveth  to  wear  such  state 

As  gifts  the  organism  to  dispense 

Virtues  in  virtues ;  energies  immense ; 
Warm  palpable  delights  of  chastity ; 

God's  breath  involved  in  its  own  radiance ; 
Language  made  all  as  flying  melody ; — 
Force  that  shall  weave  a  whirl  in  all  mankind  to  be. 

LXXXII. 

Frail  shadow !  I  do  love  it,  yet  unlove  it : 

'Tis  more  to  me  than  all  in  Lilistan ; 
Since,  more  than  this  fair  Heaven  that  shines  above  it, 

I  love  the  desolated  race  of  man, 

And  through  that  shadow  see  the  service-plan 
Of  Bridal  Ages  waiting  to  unfold. 

Time's  old  life  died  in  it,  the  new  began : 
I  seek  transposively  that  shade  to  hold 
Jgor  the  renewing  prime,  all  in  God's  truth  enscrolled. 


35 


LXXXIII. 


I  wait,  I  watch,  I  weave,  I  will,  I  wing 

To  pure  concentered  virtue  from  the  mights 
That  in  this  loftier  life  make  pleasuring  ; 

Till  harmony  with  harmony  unites, 

Shaping  a  flesh  of  mercies  and  delights, 
An  ichor  flowing  in  divine  desires. 

I  would  have  earthliness  ;  that  so  the  nights 
Of  heaven  may  grow  to  days  of  human  fires, 
For  gifts  all  sweet  and  strong,  serving  the  Earthland  choirs. 

LXXXIV. 

I  would  alternate  thus,  till  worth  below 

Should  lead  a  kingdom  of  pure  bridal  sweetness 
Forth  from  the  loftier,  lordlier  marriage  bow, 

Where  Christus-Christa  wreathe  for  rich  completeness. 

I  would  be  able  by  a  double  greatness 
To  make  an  out  stand  there  as  here  above  ; 

But  now  the  hours  wing  on  with  twofold  fleetness  : 
That  shadowed  frame,  filled  all  by  deathless  love, 
Is  pausing  in  its  flight  like  the  overweary  dove. 

LXXXV. 

The  unknown  ever  waits  upon  the  known. 

Who  walks  with  God,  walks  ever  with  surprise  : 
It  is  the  path  that  one  must  tread  alone  : 

At  every  turn  some  foeman  strikes,  but  dies. 

The  universal  anguish  wakes,  by  cries 
That  jar  the  body's  march,  the  being's  peace. 

Nature  with  a  dissolving  magic  plies, 
As  if  to  say,  '  depart  where  pains  decease.'  — 
I  toil  where  secret  Powers  ope  to  me  for  release. 


36  STAR-FLOWERS. 

LXXXVI. 

1  Forbear ! ' — I  may  not  say  it ;  but  the  floods 

Hold  that  which  I  must  silent  be  from  saying. 
Where'er  a  leaf  trembles  within  the  woods, 

Where'er  a  wind-harp  for  the  breeze  gives  playing, 

A  something  is,  for  an  Event  arraying ; 
A  something  is  that,  if  it  formed  a  wheel, 

Should  wreathe  the  Lady  of  the  Air  for  spraying, 
Till  the  white  vapors  o'er  the  planet  steal. — 
My  life  is  in  Her  Word,  to  seal  or  to  unseal. 

LXXXVII. 

And  there  are  tones  of  tender  gratulation, 

Where  woman's  bosom  shapes  God's  mercy-seat ; 
And  hopes  that  lead  divine  illumination, 

Where  banded  knights  in  high  commanderies  meet. 

The  Holy  Ghost,  the  Bridal  Paraclete, 
Draws  nearer,  dearer  than  was  e'er  before : 

The  People's  air  holds  sweetness  in  its  sweet, 
As  for  some  sacred  joy  that  nears  the  floor, 
To  lead  through  Heaven  for  Earth  the  charm  that  shall  restore. 

FUTURE   TIME:    EARTH-VISION. 

As  one  who  stands  upon  a  promontory 

And  sees,  where  once  a  proud  old  city  stood, 

The  sun  arisen,  in  solitary  glory 

To  beam  upon  the  waste  and  lonely  flood ; — 
All,  all  gone  down  to  nature's  nothinghood, 

Thrones,  powers,  dominions  in  one  hour  made  naught ; — 
So  I  behold  that  Earth  of  strife  and  blood, 

Left  as  the  memory  of  extinguished  thought. 

The  sun,  the  sea  survive : — they  for  the  ending  fought, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  37 

LXXXIX. 

The  earthly  planet  swings  in  isolation, 

Cut  off  from  the  communion  of  the  skies. 
Its  thought  gives  fear,  its  touch  a  trepidation : 

'Tis  called  'the  Eunuch/— '  Staff  without  a  rise;' 

Called  ' Upside-down/  'Dead-nose'  and  ' Broken-eyes;' 
Called  '  Impotentia/  also  '  Nothing-come.' 

'Tis  thought  to  by  opposing  energies : 
'Tis  never  spoken  of  as  living  home ; 
A  thumb-sign  only  made,  as  an  inverted  gnome. 

XC. 

Its  race  is  looked  upon  as  gone  insane, 

As  crusted  over  with  the  bestial  dross ; 
From  whom  the  Planetarians  must  restrain, 

Nor  seek  by  thought  its  boundaries  to  cross : 

'Tis  all  encompassed  by  an  occult  fosse. 
Some  name  it  'Woman  of  the  evil  whirl.' 

Lunarian  eyes  behold  it  in  a  moss. 
They  say,  'There  is  a  serpent  in  its  pearl;' 
But  pity  the  sad  race  as  for  a  ruined  girl. 

LUNARIA:   EARTH. 

The  lunar  hemisphere,  to  Earth  that  shows, 

Wears  a  grim  aspect,  fragmentary,  wan. 
Its  distant  zone,  like  some  great  cosmic  rose, 

Blooms  glorious  golden,  for  a  race  of  man 

Building  divinely,  by  an  ordered  plan ; 
Making  their  empire  one  vast  family. 

Aye  since  the  downfall  of  our  orb  began 
Their  atmosphere  has  dwindled,  and  their  sea ; 
The  home-space  gathering  in,  oasis-like  to  be. 


STAH-FLOWERS. 
XCII. 

Now  floods  have  come  to  them,  the  rains  returning 

Since  the  New  Life  found  entrance  to  our  sphere. 
Their  globe  again  touches  the  eyes  of  morning. 

They  hold  our  Lord  in  vision  pure  and  clear, 

A  Golden  Man,  Apollo  of  the  spear, 
Lovely  in  blossoms  of  the  violet  ray. 

Then  they  forbode  a  shadow  drawing  near 
To  over-clipse  our  world :  they  sweetly  say, 
'The  spear-touch  will  revive  the  Lost  Girl  to  her  play.' 

XCIII. 

Surely  would  be  a  final  end  of  sinning, 

If  Earth  but  woke  for  the  melodious  numbers, 
And  wove  the  star-flowers,  all  for  sweetness  clinging, 

Where  now  cold  nature-thought  the  mind  encumbers. 

Thrilled  but  the  Social  Spirit  from  her  slumbers 
To  loose  the  charm  of  sisterhoods  divine, 

Then  Poesy,  no  more  a  plant  that  clambers 
Through  lust's  depravity  and  murder's  crime, 
Should  twine  from  every  star  to  earth  her  flowering  vine. 

XCIV. 

But  star-flowers  fall  upon  this  generation 

As  music  that  in  vacancy  expires. 
These  are  the  times  of  the  last  tribulation : 

Minds  weave  through  fantasies  while  Time  retires. 

Time  is  itself  but  measure  of  desires ; 
Space  is  by  style  but  measure  of  delight. 

Men  learned  but  yesterday  the  speaking  wires ; 
To-morrow  they  may  learn  the  Speechless  Might, 
And  all  who  live  draw  close  as  wedded  hearts  unite. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  39 

XCV. 

JTis  a  vast  page,  this  star-page,  beautiful. 

Aye  since  my  word-staff  to  the  heavens  erected 
It  hath  drawn  up  full  many  a  gift  to  cull. 

Man  oped  to  nature-self,  but  he  neglected 

The  Star- Word,  till  he  withered  unprotected, 
And  broke  his  race  to  fragments  of  a  man. 

Time's  awful  skeleton  he  hath  dissected, 
To  theorise  amid  the  ruins  wan. 
He  twines  to  meet  the  worm,  lost  in  the  Nature-plan. 

XCVI. 

Man  thinks  his  life  into  an  isolation ; 

He  has  not  learned  to  think  Society : 
He  serves  for  Nature  in  his  generation. 

Not  his  the  Tree  of  Life ;  the  nature-tree 

Lifts  in  the  motions  of  his  energy. — 
Ah,  but  the  Man  who  is  the  Tree  of  Life, 

Made  as  a  germ  that  in  the  ball  might  be, 
Impregnates  godly  through  the  Goddess  Wife ; 
In  all  who  shall  survive  He  grows  with  virtues  rife. 

XCVII. 

And  He  will  form  Himself  one  Righteousness. 

I  see  the  End  approaching  in  the  song : 
The  words  hold  strengths  to  save  and  sweets  to  bless :  • 

The  smallest  of  all  seeds,  borne  by  the  throng 

Of  circling  seasons  in  its  flight  along, 
It  shapes  where  Earth  its  God  has  most  denied, 

Lifting  by  sacred  energies,  that  Wrong 
Has  trembled  at  e'en  while  it  crucified. 
'Tis  so  Christ  reappears,  in  manhood  to  abide, 


40  STAR-FLOWERS. 

XCVIII. 

I  set  my  staff,  high,  firm,  concentered  all. 

As  in  God's  loins  I  touch  where  I  became. 
There  is  no  reason  why  to  lift  the  pall 

From  our  organic  being  should  be  shame. 

I  think  not  of  the  mimic  nature-game  ; 
For  thus  it  was  and  thus  shall  ever  be  : 

Our  life-sparks  kindled  from  God's  marriage-flame ; 
They  quicken  in  that  flame  eternally. — 
Time,  space,  earth,  heaven  retire :  God  is  made  all  to  me. 

XCIX. 


6 Faithful'  she  said,  the  sweet  and  sacred  spouse, 

1  'Tis  bliss-time ;  think  no  more  into  thy  double  : 
Return  the  speech-form  from  that  narrow  house, 

Circled  by  hosts  that  seem  to  me  but  stubble ; 

Waiting  aweary  for  the  winter's  trouble. 
I  will  hold  to  that  shadow  for  thy  rest : 

'Tis  quivering  as  a  human  water-bubble  : 
See,  my  own  time-form  from  me  I  divest ; 
That  will  I  space  below,  nerve-life  through  nerve-shape  prest.' 

A     NEW    D A Y  . 

When  Innocence  renews  the  Age  of  Gold, 

Renascent  Earth  shall  build  God's  passion-seat. 
Then  every  bower  of  human  bliss  will  fold 

As  in  the  white  wings  of  the  Paraclete. 

I  woke  in  Issa's  bosom  wifely  sweet. — 
The  crimson  morn  rose  through  her  smile  to  glow. 

The  joy  of  Lilistan  gave  lips  to  greet, 
Leading  new  powers  to  liberation  so, 
That  in  my  shadow-frame  diffused  and  wrought  below. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  41 

01. 

'  This  is  a  day  of  quietudes,'  she  said, 

'And  we  are  in  devotion  by  our  style. 
With  night  the  sacred  loveresses  fed 

For  a  divine  oblation :  see,  the  Isle 

Of  Earth  is  touching  to  the  solar  smile : 
Bright  Helios  glows  through  an  illumined  ring. 

Mark  how  the  rose-clouds  gather ;  how  they  pile 
Upon  the  planet  for  an  entering. 
Feel  to  it  by  thy  thought ;  feel  what  the  thought  may  bring. 

OIL 

'  Now,  here  I  fold  thee,  blissfully  inwoven, 

Till  the  far  shadow-frame  is  held  quite  still, 
And  lips  that  shew  the  pomegranate  full  cloven 

Open  the  wine  of  melody  to  spill. 

Far  to  that  lingering  shade  I  forced  a  will 
That  led  a  whirl  of  life  to  fold  the  brain  : 

The  senses  of  the  shade  began  to  thrill  : 
It  lifted  through  the  night's  long  labor-pain, 
Till  morning  light  streamed  in,  kindling  from  vein  to  vein/ 

GUI. 

She  led  a  touch-sense  to  the  shadow's  eyes ; 
.    They  opened  in  a  mist  of  violet  dew. 
Lily  had  woven  of  her  mysteries 

Within  that  slumberous  shade  the  dim  night  through, 

And  left  an  image  beautiful  to  view, 
Implied  through  all  its  vibratory  lines. 

She  lifted  and  a  little  while  withdrew. 
As  a  white  snowdrift  caught  in  summer  vines, 
The  cold  was  melting  there ;  flowing  as  if  to  wines, 
vi  6 


42  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CIV. 

* 

Said  Lily,  'In  that  shadowy  subsistence, 

More  as  it  pales  the  more  we  concentrate  : 
We  organise  therein  by  a  persistence  : 

Our  wedded  unities  infloriate  : 

The  senses  all  grow  mildly  delicate : 
The  brain  is  in  a  wreath  of  odors  bound : 

Our  mirrored  thoughts  warm  images  create, 
That  from  it  rise,  encircling  round  by  round : 
Our  sensitive  delights  are  shaping  there  a  ground. 

CV. 

'Now  it  is  time  to  rise.;     I  sought  to  lift. 

' Woman  is  strength/  she  said;  'be  strong  in  me: 
My  raptures  in  thy  bosom  ply/     The  gift 

Of  her  sweet  breath,  by  one  full  harmony, 

Moving  in  all  the  frame's  tranquility, 
Enchanting  and  encompassing,  distilled 

A  triple  force  that  met  the  People's  glee. 
Into  the  People's  glee  it  passed  and  willed  : 
I  rose  revigored  so,  for  majesty  instilled. 

CVI. 

Ever  below  I  rose  with  Care,  that  rolled 

Upon  me  with  the  painful  morning's  rise. 
The  senses  wakened  so  to  feel  and  hold 

The  weight  of  sorrow  from  the  ministries. 

I  drew  to  service  in  the  agonies. 
The  feet  touched  Labor,  where  they  met  the  earth  : 

By  toil  I  served  the  social  pieties, 
Pressed  in  by  atmospheres  of  man's  unworth, 
That  ever  sought  to  slay  the  Word-thoughts  in  their  birth, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  43 

CVII. 

Clasped  in  the  missal  of  Eternity, 

I  rise  by  joys  made  strengths  in  their  fruition, 
Even  as  a  truth  that  holds  Divinity 

Lifts  from  the  occult  page  to  meet  the  vision. 

What  energies  of  virtue  in  decision ! 
The  feet  press  in  the  commons  of  the  land ; — 

Press  for  a  soil  that  thrills  to  the  elysian. 
In  the  great  People's  providence  I  stand : 
My  house  is  on  the  rock ;  Earth  builds  but  on  the  sand* 

CVIII. 

Nine  years,  methinks,  passed  all  in  concentration, 

Would  serve  to  make  a  study  of  the  land ; 
Passing  through  all  the  lines  of  operation ; 

Serving  by  kingliness  from  band  to  band. 

All  of  this  wisdom  I  would  thence  expand, 
For  one  sweet  flower  of  earthly  perfectness ; 

Then  in  that  flower  for  world-wise  labor  stand, 
Wreathing  the  shadow-frame  with  heavenly  dress, 
The  Kingdom  of  the  Word  in  Earthland  to  express. 

CIX. 

Issa  laughed  to  me ;  'Yes,'  she  said,  'it  is, 

A  nine  in  nine,  a  cycle  of  enwombing : 
For  Lilistan  is  all  a  bed  of  bliss, 

Woven  to  outlines  of  the  Mother's  blooming. 

Perfection  grows  by  multiplied  assuming ; 
But  there  is  more  in  this  than  you  divine. 

Ever  you  fashion  through  the  earthly  glooming, 
And  I  am  weaving,  by  the  mine  in  thine, 
Within  that  shade  below,  as  you  for  splendor  climb. 


44  STAR-FLOWERS. 

ex. 

'The  builded  concept  of  the  kingdom's  worth 

By  littleness  forms  in  that  frame's  dimension. 
The  holiness-in-righteousness  seeks  birth 

To  ends  by  the  organic  intervention. 

Our  social  order  labors  to  extension, 
Divinely  shaping  so  its  ultimate ; 

Touching  that  frail  mankind  with  sure  intention. ; 
By  motion,  still  by  motion,  weaving  state, 
As  mothers  in  the  bell  for  infancy  create. 

CXI. 

'  The  kingdom  in  a  sense  is  protoplastic  : 

It  generates  for  Earth  a  protoplasm. 
Quaint  images  appear,  grotesque,  fantastic, 

In  human  minds :  by  surge  and  throe  and  spasm. 

They  ope,  as  from  some  dim  disrupted  chasm, 
Through  human  thought ;  they  wheel,  they  whirl,  they  fly 

Men  rise  for  them  to  be  in  strife  and  schism 
With  the  old  time  and  with  its  aged  sky. 
'Tis  chaos  in  the  deep,  as  if  the  world  would  die. 

CXII. 

'Tis  'twilight  of  the  gods;'  from  Nifelhiem 

To  Asgard,  all  things  whirling  in  confusion ; 
The  form,  the  style,  the  reason  and  the  rhyme 

Of  human  movement  tending  to  conclusion  ; 

Faith,  family  and  state  in  dissolution ; 
A  general  outpush  from  the  human  race 

Of  the  Great  Old  it  cherished ;  a  profusion 
Of  emanating  energies  that  face 
The  instinct  of  the  Old,  dissolving  it  apace. 


ST  Aft -FLO  WEES*  45 

CXIII. 

'The  protoplastic  life  in  emanation 

Enters  mankind  by  one  vast  composite, 
Making  a  universal  distillation, 

Impregnating  and  vitalising  it. 

The  Phoenix  on  her  egg  will  soon  have  lit 
Softly  and  tenderly  with  brooding  breast, 

For  the  nine  incubation-rounds  to  sit ; 
The  yolk,  by  the  man-molecules  possest, 
Growing  to  shape  one  life,  a  bestness  in  the  best. 

CXIV. 

'And  when  the  Mother  Bird  descends  through  heaven 

And  touches  so  the  world-egg,  it  will  thrill, 
Till  shadowings  from  her  peaceful  bosom  given 

Make  the  great  nest  all  drowsy,  cool  and  still ; 

But  when  the  Father  Phoenix  with  his  bill 
For  the  last  penetration  meets  the  shell, 

The  eyes  will  open,  and  the  social  will 
Lift  as  for  wings,  and  shadowings  dispel : 
Then  comes  the  Golden  Time,  that  prophecies  foretell. 

cxv. 

'  See,  how  my  thoughts  verse  in  thee ! ' — I  replied, 

"Small  pearly  eggs  in  microcosmic  cells." 
She  answered,  'Note  thee  how  they  are  supplied, 

And  how  they  open  all  from  tiny  bells. 

Thoughts  grow  to  life  in  protoplastic  shells : 
The  Mother  Bird  sits  brooding  o'er  the  brain. 

'Tis  thus  the  Holy  Ghost  by  miracles 
Leads  poesies  to  wing, — a  flying  train  : 
She  formeth  so  a  Voice ;  that  voice  the  world  must  gain. 


46  STAR-FLOWERS, 

CXVI. 

"That  Voice  must  find  mankind  incredulous. 

The  egg  hears  not  if  one  should  prophesy, 
Saying,  '  0  egg,  all  golden  glorious, 

Thou  shalt  fly  forth  to  joy  and  liberty.' 

Men  think  the  thought  of  their  captivity : 
They  hug  the  prison  of  their  discontent. 

They  speculate  of  'be  or  not  to  be,' 
Yet  vaguely  feel  a  coming  strange  event. 
They  know  but  of  the  egg ;  not  of  the  egg's  intent. 

CXVII. 

( The  wisest  of  them  sense  incipient  thought, 

Feeling  through  yolk,  seeing  through  albumen. 
Where  'the  Unknowable'  their  eyes  have  caught 

'Tis  but  the  shell  a-rounding  to  the  ken ; 

The  vast  white  mystery  enfolding  then. 
These  little  thinkers  of  the  orbed  sphere, 

They  know  not  how  their  structures  fold  and  pen ; 
Or  how  the  drop,  that  seems  a  sorrow-tear, 
Impregnates  through  the  egg,  formed  in  them  to  appear. 

cxvin. 

'  They  say  of  learning,  that  it  is  increased  ; 

Of  science,  that  it  works  a  transformation ; 
Of  creed-faith,  that  it  hath  wellnigh  deceased ; 

Of  life,  that  now  'tis  all  in  fermentation ; 

But  know  not  that  the  Egg  seeks  incubation, 
And  a  Man-Bird  aspireth  to  be  born. 

Meanwhile  the  Egg  is  full  of  disputation ; 
Its  myriads  hold  this  base  estate  in  scorn ; 
The  shell  grows  porous,  too,  for  lights  that  rise  to  morn. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  47 

CXIX. 

'  Now  comes  the  brooding  time ;  the  funeral 
Of  the  Egg's  darksome  and  expired  condition ; 

The  vanishing  of  each  concentered  thrall ; 
The  liberation  of  each  local  vision, 
Formed  to  new  sight  from  earthly  to  elysian ; 

The  body  structured  to  its  liberty ; 

The  animates  formed  to  their  socialism ; 

The  birth  of  the  divine  humanity. 

Old  earth,  old  heaven  dissolved,  as  the  lost  shell  to  be. 

cxx. 

'  'Twas  a  wise  word  of  ancient  Socrates, 

'  I  do  not  know  myself,  and  therefore  say 
Nothing  about  the  unknown  deities.' 

Nature  will  in  the  word-seed  urge  her  play 

Till  the  shell  breaks ;  but  in  that  self-same  day 
Light  will  stream  in  upon  the  mercy- wind, 

And  men  in  one  humanity  array, 
From  'know  thyself,'  in  woman's  worth  enshrined, 
To  know  of  God,  One-Twain,  heart's  Heart  and  Mind  of  mind. 

CXXI. 

'  But  the  Great  Egg  is  made  of  many  small, — 
Men  as  eggs  walking :  therefore  do  I  stand 

Among  these  walking  eggs  built  as  a  wall. 

I  touch  by  word-staff  formed  in  pleasure-wand, 
Saying,  '  0  eggs,  would  ye  possess  the  land 

And  the  blue  heaven,  to  fly  therein  at  will? 

Feel  for  the  mercy-breath ;  your  thoughts  enband 

In  sacred  lines  of  harmony :  lie  still 

Beneath  the  Shadowing  Breast  that  comes  the  nest  to  fill/ 


48  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CXXIL 

'  Life  is  a  sea  of  heaving  contradictions : 

The  Egg  is  in  a  ferment  everywhere : 
Men  drowse  and  dream  to  happy  recollections, 

As  if  they  glimpsed  to  swan-flights  in  the  air, 

Or  saw  white-bosomed  birds  on  waters  fair 
Sportive  amid  gold  lilies  of  the  lake, — 

Blithe  hymeneal  creatures,  pair  and  pair : 
Then  in  their  close-bound  shells  the  eggs  awake, 
Pining  for  hope  deferred  as  if  the  heart  would  break.' 

GRADATION:  HENRY  BELLOWS:  OLD  FRIENDS 

I  take  my  stand  in  Lilistan  anew, 

Yet  think  of  what  a  worthy  priest  would  tell. 

He  was  a  friend  whose  heart  unto  me  drew, 
And  yet  he  named  me,  'Man  without  a  shell.' 
Dear  Henry  Bellows,  sagely  and  right  well 

He  sought  to  serve  among  his  fellow-men. 

Yea,  he  had  thoughts  that  touched  the  violet  bell. 

He  prayed  and  labored  for  the  good  time  when 

Man  shall  his  manhood  find,  and  woman  bloom  again. 

CXXIV. 

'  Dear  Brother  Harris !  this  is  God-time  : — Channing, — 

'Tis  William  Henry, — found  me  on  the  farm, 
And,  by  his  labor-breath  my  bosom  fanning, 

Led  me  with  kindness  of  the  social  arm 

Into  the  presence  ;  it  is  full  of  charm. 
Bless  me,  I  was  a  sad  conservative ! 

Did  I  forsake  you  in  Time's  old  alarm  ? 
That  visionary  life  I  over-live. 
Please  say  that  you  receive,     I  know  that  you  forgive/ 


STAR-FLOWERS.  49 

cxxv. 

"The  man  without  a  shell  receives  you  Sir; — 
The  priest  who  had  no  parish  but  mankind/' 

Quoth  he,  'I  did  my  thought  unsepulcher 
When  I  unshelled,  and  I  was  glad  to  find 
That  you  were  nearer  right  than  I  opined. 

Chapin, — I  met  him,  full  of  wit  as  ever, 

And  he  said,  'Bellows,  we  enjoyed  the  rind, 

But  Harris  found  the  Lily  in  the  river. 

He  is  the  melon-boy,  slicing  it  up  forever/  ' 

CXXVI. 

I  answered,  "Yes,  you  find  a  melon-seed." 

He  took  my  hand,  he  pressed  it  o'er  and  o'er. 
His  bosom  quivered :  did  it  inly  bleed  ? 

Words  came  that  wrung  his  being  to  the  core. 

1 0  for  one  year,  one  week,  on  Earth  once  more ! 
0,  for  one  day  of  freedom  where  I  stood  ! 

Thoughts  gather  in  me ;  swell  and  rise  and  roar, 
As  if  Niagara  had  loosed  a  flood. 

0  for  my  flock,  my  flock !  the  words  would  turn  to  blood. 

CXXVII. 

'  I  knew  what  the  religious  movement  meant ; — 

The  thing  we  felt  but  never  dared  reveal. 
My  life,  my  life !  it  ruined  as  I  spent : 

I  held  a  fire,  but  held  it  to  congeal. 

I  knew  a  truth,  but  knew  it  to  conceal. 
My  Father's  house,  it  was  a  den  of  thieves : 

I  should  have  scourged  them  forth  with  whip  of  steel, 
And  driven  them  flying  as  the  autumn  leaves. 

1  bound  the  grain-thieves  up  and  prayed  upon  their  sheaves. 

vi7 


50  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CXXVIII. 

1 1  was  not  following  the  Holy  Master : 

He  was  a  Socialist  from  heel  to  hip.' — 
Spake  I,  "Dear  Henry,  rise  above  disaster." 

.He  caught  my  hand ;  he  pressed  with  fiery  grip : 

Then  made  as  so  to  form  a  kissing  lip. — 
If  one  of  priests  most  liberal  and  sweet 

Feels  thus  the  memory  of  his  earth-time  nip, 
How  shall  it  be  with  those  who  from  the  seat 
Of  Christ  the  Socialist  for  praise  god  Mammon  greet  ? 

CXXIX. 

I  said  again,  "Our  friendship  is  immortal. 

Channing,  yourself  and  Chapin  and  Starr  King, — 
I  parted  with  you  at  the  blood-wet  portal, 

Where  I  stood  meekly  for  the  world  to  fling 

The  venomed  spawn  of  all  its  festering. 
I  chose  that  none  of  you  should  bear  a  shame, 

And  parted  in  a  sacred  silencing. 
On  no  past  kindness  did  I  ever  claim. 
Ye  served  in  your  own  ways,  crowned  with  no  evil  name. 

cxxx. 

"  Surely  ye  served, — each  in  his  generation, 

And  many  virtues  from  your  lives  exprest. 
The  good  man,  rising  to  this  elevation, 

Sees  where  he  failed,  till  sorrows  wound  the  breast ; 

And  ye  four  saw,  as  your  own  sighs  attest." 
His  thought  grew  in  him  to  a  blood-red  pall. 

He  stood  as  for  some  papal  burning  drest. 
1  Let  me  wear  anguish,'  spake  he,  '  once  for  all ; 
If  some  by  me  arose,  others  by  me  did  fall.' 


STAR-FLOWERS.  5l 

CXXXI. 

These  are  riot  commoners  of  Lilistan, 

But  in  a  region  that  is  styled  <  Gradation ' ; 
Growing  hy  practice  in  the  order-plan. 

Much  they  unlearn,  making  a  pure  oblation ; 

Rising  to  find  the  social  elevation. 
Though  briefly  they  may  visit  us,  the  air 

So  stimulates  the  inward  adoration 
That  it  revives  anew  the  earthly  care, 
And  memories  wake,  as  this,  more  than  the  heart  can  bear. 


3. 

EARTH-LABOR  . 

We  call,  we  gather,  we  unite : 
We  lead  the  Word-birth  into  light. 
For  us  the  world  renews  her  prime ; 
Eternity  buds  forth  in  time. 
Where  toiled  the  ancient  hierophant 
But  as  a  sage,  laborious  ant, 
We  arch  the  caverns  by  a  glee 
To  flood  them  all  with  melody. 

They  whose  large  thought  includes  mankind, 
Waiting  until  the  shell  unbind, 
May  touch  by  virtues  that  dispense 
From  center  to  circumference. 
Kingdoms  that  base  on  human  wrong 
Shall  disappear  before  the  song, 
And  every  grief  wherein  men  dwell 
Pass  to  oblivion  with  the  shell. 


52  STAR-FLOWERS. 

They  who  have  found  the  under-space 
And  left  a  fragrance  in  their  trace ; 
They  who  have  borne  a  joy  unfurled, 
To  blossom  for  the  under-world, 
And  led  the  shadowed  girls  to  shine 
Like  the  uplifted  Proserpine, — 
Well  may  their  heart  be  blithe  and  gay, 
Though  the  cold  floods  the  feet  delay : 
A  splendor  flushes  through  the  pain 
Till  morning  comes  with  mercy-rain. 

Did  Truth  but  by  a  song  emerge  ? 
Behind  the  verse  the  chariots  urge : 
The  winged  steeds  in  swift  career 
O'er  the  bright  East  their  strength  uprear : 
They  sparkle  in  the  orient  sky, 
Whilst  moons  recede  and  planets  fly, 
Till  Earth  unweaves  its  closed  cocoon, 
And  lives,  in  lingering  death  that  swoon, 
Wake  for  delight,  all  social-free, 
Wrought  in  the  large  humanity. 

The  babe  may  dream  within  the  womb ; 
The  old  man  slumber  to  the  tomb : 
Through  darkening  hours  and  closing  years 
We  shape  our  crucifix  of  spears. 
The  days  are  bleak,  the  nights  are  wild, 
Yet  Earth  must  own  the  Savior-Child. 
Till  days  are  warm  and  nights  are  sweet 
Our  sacred  numbers  we  repeat ; 
Until  the  Nine  their  charm  have  spun ; 
Until  the  Fates  their  freedom  won ; 
Until  the  Bride-bird  lifts  to  wing 
The  babe  her  breast  is  mothering. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  53 

Eternity  is  made  our  bed ; 

Infinity  its  mantle  spread  : 

Heaven  is  our  garden  of  delight, 

But  Earth  is  ever  nigh  to  sight. 

Ever  to  Earth  the  joys  descend : 

Ever  in  man  they  find  their  end, 

And  ever  on  their  sacred  way 

In  woman's  bridal  heart  give  play. 

Upon  her  heart  I  lean  my  spear, 

Till  rays  enkindle  warm  and  clear, 

And  crown  her,  where  the  rays  untwine, 

In  Issa-Lily's  light  to  shine ; 

Till  Lilistan's  warm  lights  unfold 

To  wreathe  her  all  in  marriage-gold. 


DIVINE     TEMPTATION  :      OUR    LADY     OF     INNOCENCE 

We  love  our  ladies, — heavenly  architects, 

Yet  in  our  love  we  do  not  uxorise. 
His  own  original  man  ne'er  neglects : 

He  melts  not  vaguely  in  his  lady's  eyes. 

Manhood  grows  mighty  through  the  wiferies  : 
For  more  of  woman  still  the  more  is  man. 

Fed  by  her  gifts  he  doth  the  more  uprise 
In  mental,  social,  sexual,  vital  plan, 
Incentered  aye  more  firm  and  girt  to  lordlier  span. 


54  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CXXXIIL 

A  Lady  came  to  me,  in  vision  truly, 

Saying,  'Now,  Faithful,  take  me  on  thy  knee/ 
I  felt  unto  her  that  she  asked  unduly. 

'Nay,  but/  she  spake,  'I  have  a  gift  for  thee.' 

I  smote  her  by  an  impulse  suddenly ; 
Fearing  that  this  might  draw  me  to  a  fall. 

She  touched  my  garter,  smiling  pleasantly ; 
Unvailed  of  the  disguises  one  and  all. 
It  was  the  Mother,  firm  and  mighty  as  a  wall. 

CXXXIV. 

The  Mother  spake,  'Child,  I  do  tempt  indeed, 

Yet  in  the  movements  of  My  holiness. 
He  who  will  strike  at  women,  when  they  plead 

To  overflow  upon  him,  and  to  press 

Unduly  even  by  their  strength  to  bless, 
"Wounds  not,  but  wakes  the  greater  womangood.' 

I  answered,  "Mother,  I  am  in  distress : 
Two  babes  were  offered  to  my  fatherhood, 
Where,  in  the  earthly  shade,  so  long  for  Thee  I  stood. 

cxxxv. 

"  By  all  the  woman-love  enfired  completely, 

I  craved  those  little  ones ;  but  when  I  saw 
That  this  might  be  temptation,  rising  sweetly, 

I  lifted  in  the  righteousness  of  law. 

And  yet  it  touched  my  spirit  to  the  raw, 
With  woundings  almost  till  the  blood  escapes ; 

Knowing  those  infants  grasped  within  the  paw 
Of  the  fierce  dragon  who  the  planet  rapes, 
And  their  soft  flesh  stained  through  from  lust's  impoisoned 
grapes : 


STAR-FLOWERS.  55 

CXXXVI. 

"Knowing  indeed,  that  if  I  folded  those, 

As  I  desired,  to  the  life-giving  nest, 
My  shadow-form  might  perish,  and  the  close 

Of  its  long  labor  leave  a  work  supprest. 

Therefore  I  smote  at  motherhood's  dear  breast ; 
Yet  this  I  did  and  this  will  do  for  Thee." 

The  Mother  spake,  '  Take  thou  those  babes,  opprest 
With  deadly  virus  from  heredity. 
For  Me  thou  didst  reject;  take  them  for  Mine  to  be.' 

CXXXVII. 

"Great  Mother,"  said  I,  "art  Thou  tempting  still?" 

'Try  Me/. She  spake;  I  cried,  "I  will  not  take, 
Till  Thou  shalt  round  a  love-force  in  my  will, 

Large  to  enclose  them,  all  for  Thy  own  sake. 

Nay,  till  Thou  openest  in  my  breast  a  lake 
That  shall  flow  into  them  as  this  of  mine. 

Nay,  till  Thou  shalt  my  lip,  that  drieth,  slake 
By  overflowings  of  Thy  social  wine, 
And  nerve  my  frame  anew  for  mightier  social  twine." 

CXXXVIII. 

The  Mother  while  I  spake  became  as  seated : 

My  feet  to  hers  were  led  unconciously 
Until  by  feet  divine  to  feet  She  greeted. 

Thought  wakened  with  a  start,  for  suddenly 

Her  lifted  foot  pressed  mine  mysteriously  : 
She  beamed  forth  then,  Lady  of  Innocence, 

And  said,  in  tones  that  broke  deliciously, 
'  Son,  women  make  a  touch  of  confidence, 
And  I  have  touched  thee  so,  till  wisdom  forms  to  sense, 


56  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CXXXIX. 

'Now  ever  I  do  enter  by  the  flowing, 

And  aye  your  Father  maketh  for  the  firm. 

Say,  wilt  thou  take  those  little  wild  flowers  blowing  ? 
Wilt  thou  be  good  to  word-seed  in  the  germ  ?' 
I  still  spake,  "Nay!  no,  Mother,  lest  the  worm 

Enter  through  them  to  others  whom  I  serve ; — 
Not  till  my  service  reach  a  rounding  term, 

And  general  toil  through  childhood  wreathes  its  curve. 

Mother,  against  Thy  breast  my  energies  do  nerve. 

CXL. 

"  My  Father  tempted  me  by  giving  force ; 

Then  saying,  '  Wrestle  with  Me/  and  I  met 
The  form  He  shaped  for  that  small  battle's  course, 

Till  mind  and  will  broke  to  the  labor-sweat. 

'Twas  thus  He  liberated  powers  that  yet 
Hold  me  to  service  in  His  vast  design. 

I  cannot,  from  His  immanence,  forget, 
Nor  reconcile  my  willness  into  Thine." — 
She  smiled ;  then  crossed  my  lips  with  Her  red  passion-sign. 

CXLI. 

Then  spake,  'Go  now,  and  do  this  thing.     I  ask  it.' 

"I  know  not,  Mother,"  sadly  came  reply. 
"Were  I  a  love-wife  with  a  baby-basket 

Surely  upon  such  errand  I  would  fly, 

For  the  rich  weaving  of  the  life  to  ply ; 
But  see,  I  have  not  tact  for  little  things. 

The  great  ordeal  of  my  time  draws  nigh. 
Already  I  enfold  the  shadowings." — 
She  drew  away ;  then  rose  in  power  and  lift  of  wings, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  57 

CXLII. 

Then  by  the  Holy  Ghost  She  fashioned  over, 

And  the  vast  bosom  of  the  Mother  Dove 
Drooped  as  with  snow-white  plumes  to  calm  and  cover  : 

Thereby  Her  mystery  in  my  being  wove 

A  father-might  led  through  divinest  love. 
Borne  upward  so  thought  kindled,  lifted  free ; 

Then  the  Voice  came,  ' Enter  the  mystery,  prove: 
All-Being  bears  the  burdening  in  thee. 
Enter  those  babes,  as  spring  invades  the  glacial  sea.' 

CXLIIL 

The  heart  of  God  is  fond ;  not  over-fond, 

Nor  foolish-fond :  'tis  failing-fond,  oh  never ! 
It  weaves  a  bloom-bell  for  the  race  beyond 

Supremest  visionings  from  thought's  endeavor. 

'Tis  fondness  that  holds  arrows  in  its  quiver. 
Made  to  the  form  of  all  capacities, 

It  penetrates  the  being  wheresoever 
Sleep  in  their  shells  the  nobler  faculties, 
To  rouse  them  and  to  raise,  even  by  agonies. 

CXLIV. 

So  here  in  Heaven,  where  agonies  have  ceased, 

The  mysteries  of  experience  unfold. 
The  People's  loftier  being  is  released 

Meeting  resistants  that  are  hard  to  hold. 

The  pleasure-heat  is  met  by  tempered  cold  : 
The  gathering  blisses  lead  through  trials  on  : 

The  battle-march  in  melody  is  rolled  : 
Still  God  ingerminates  each  daughter-son 
For  loftier  attempts  from  lesser  triumphs  won, 
vi8 


58  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CXLV. 

Heroic,  stimulative,  yictorising, 

Rise  the  pure  atmospheres  from  bosom-bliss. 
In  all  the  joys  of  the  land's  paradising 

The  arrows  fly :  sometimes  from  lips  that  kiss 

Dart  fiery  flashes  never  sent  amiss. — 
Lily  awoke  a  chime  of  silver  bells. 

'In  saviorhood,'  she  spake,  'thou  doest  this, 
And  there  is  joy  in  many  violet  dells, 
For  what  thou  dost  below  to  charm  those  cradled  shells.' 

EARTH-CHILDREN. 

I  felt  below  the  loss  of  energy, 

And  a  great  grief  o'erswept  me  as  a  wave. 
Entering  the  Earth's  imperilled  infancy, 

Many  are  seen  but  fitted  for  the  grave. 

One  in  a  thousand  chance  the  Life  might  save, 
Were  a  new  order  fashioned  in  mankind. 

Begotten  where  the  cruel  lusts  enslave ; 
Formed  where  the  womb  is  but  the  quivering  rind 
Of  Love's  true  blossom-bell,  the  babes  in  death  are  twined. 

CXLVII. 

The  multitudes  should  never  have  been  born. 

The  few,  at  best  part  fashioned,  part  impure, 
Touch  with  their  sight  but  to  the  nature-morn ; 

The  senses  to  the  nature-sense  inure. 

The  instincts  follow  for  the  nature-lure ; 
They  gravitate  to  animality. 

In  no  sense  are  they  fitted  to  endure 
The  discipline  that  trains  the  germ  to  be 
Wrought  as  a  breathing  shape  for  God's  Humanity. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  59 

CXLVIIL 

Yet,  looking  to  the  ripest  and  the  best, 

In  the  first  cells  where  character  is  wrought, 
Rich  promises  as  expectation  rest, 

For  such  are  pregnant  from  the  Social  Thought : 

Should  that  be  to  the  visible  outfought, 
'Mid  the  fierce  discords  of  a  waiting  time, 

The  fires  wherein  those  infant  powers  are  caught 
Must  rise  to  conflagrations,  and  the  twine 
Of  the  Avenging  Powers  weave  by  the  Wrath  Divine. 

CXLIX. 

There  are  young  Terrors  on  the  nursing  breast, 

Who,  fed  and  trained  in  Nature's  egoism, 
Did  time  afford, — John  Baptists  of  the  West, — 

Would  light  a  flaming  sea  for  Earth's  baptism ; 

Would  open  deep,  to  many  a  red  abysm, 
The  hell  of  anarchy  within  the  race, 

Till  wealth  and  want  should  be  no  more  in  schism, 
But  common  desolations  make  embrace, 
And  the  insane  mankind  fail,  blotted  out  from  space. 

CL. 

One  sees  but  little  here :  Time  fails  indeed. 

The  Nature-womb,  that  fashioned  through  the  vast 
Sepulchral  hollow  where  the  life-loves  bleed, 

Is  failing  of  its  energy  at  last : 

A  shadow  enters  there :  its  lines  o'ercast  : 
The  unrealities  within  them  weave. 

The  generative  play  is  welliiigh  past : 
Woman  will  but  of  images  conceive, 
That  vanish  through  the  bell  as  crimson,  lights  of  eve. 


60  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CLI. 

Thus  everywhere  the  End  is  fast  anearing ; 

Even  through  babyhood  the  shadows  ply  : 
'Tis  a  recession ;  then  a  disappearing, 

As  when  discordant  sounds  in  silence  die ; 

The  mortal  hush  from  failing  agony ; 
The  collapse  of  unworth  in  emptiness. 

The  shuttle,  weaving  life  that  long  did  fly, 
Is  stilled  ;  the  woven  threads  that  wrought  the  dress 
Break  from  the  loom  whose  reeds  no  more  their  form  confess. 

CLII. 

'The  child/  'tis  said,  'is  father  of  the  man;' 

But  souls  in  whom  the  Racial  Spirit  dwells 
One-twain  grow  parents,  to  evolve  the  plan 

Of  infant  kingdoms,  e'en,  as  now  foretells. 

The  Perfect  Beauty  wreathes  Her  blossom  bells 
To  one  full  orb  of  exquisite  design. 

She  weaveth  there  by  many  sacred  spells  : 
Through  manhood  aye  shapes  infancy  more  fine  : 
At  last  a  child-like  race  lifts  to  its  birth  divine. 

CLIII. 

Those  of  the  Earth  who  in  the  great  transition 

Survive  the  close  of  ruining  and  doom, 
Fold  inwardly, — seen  by  the  future's  vision, — 

Where  that  Great  Future  makes  herself  a  womb. 

Why  do  Earth's  best  and  dearest  vail  in  gloom, 
Feeling  ingathered  by  a  secret  might 

Where  holiest  mysteries  the  mind  illume, 
Touching  as  star-points  to  the  vaulted  night, 
Whilst  thought  and  being  hide  from  time's  intrusive  sight  ? 


STAR-FLOWEES.  61 

CLIV. 

The  Hidden  Wisdom  draws  Her  children  so, 

All  by  a  process  of  internalising ; 
Stilling  and  deepening  that  She  may  bestow 

The  germs  that  grow  for  Earth's  new  paradising. 

'Tis  a  new  world  of  innocence  arising : 
Man  in  the  racial  round  at  last  hath  trod 

Where  the  Time  Spirit  pauses  from  devising  : 
Falls  from  his  grasp  the  Planet's  quivering  rod. — 
That  only  holdeth  firm  whose  form  is  fixed  in  God. 

CLV. 

So  the  New  Time  will  dawn  through  infancy : 

A  great  Child-People  on  the  planet's  verge 
Shall  smile  to  see  its  immortality 

From  God  One-Twain  by  respirations  urge. 

The  Commune  so  through  woman  shall  emerge, 
Filled  from  the  Mother-Heart  as  from  the  sea ; 

The  pregnant  waters  through  man's  shore-way  surge : 
From  her  warm  loveliness  irradiate  he 
Shall  clothe  her  commune  then  with  full  society. 

CLVL 

Child-woman,  with  child-man  for  gladness  dwelling ! 

The  bestial  in  the  human  shews  no  more : 
Fruition  stands  in  place  of  vague  Foretelling. 

Into  Eternity  the  Ages  bore : 

They  touched  till  oped  for  man  the  spacial  door ; 
Forming  the  Word  through  Nature,  leading  forth 

A  music  and  a  motion  to  restore 
The  ancient  harmony  that  fled  from  Earth. — 
The  doom-wrought  End  reveals  Eternity  in  birth. 


62  STAR-FLOWERS. 

EARTH-TRAFFIC. 

Nature  o'ercomes  the  soul's  fair  infancy 

Through  social  customs  that  the  race  enchain. 
The  system  of  Earth's  dread  society 

Is  based  and  keyed  in  lust  of  private  gain. 

The  nature-instinct,  taught  to  unrestrain, 
Enthralls  the  child  to  gain's  impiety ; 

Hardens  the  heart  against  the  blessed  reign 
Of  the  unselfish  loves  :  the  Mother-Sea 
Is  chained  in  its  first  flow,  all  winter-bound  to  be. 

CLVIII. 

'Tis  the  pursuit  of  private  wealth  that  hardens 

And  makes  men  diabolical  at  last ; 
That  exiles  from  the  paradisal  gardens, 

And  leads  the  being  to  untimely  blast. 

This  is  the  frozen  mill-stone,  rudely  cast 
Upon  the  infant  bosom ;  this  the  germ 

Of  the  huge  robberies  that  Earth  devast : 
This  leads  the  race  to  ruin  for  its  term ; 
Plucks  from  the  soul  its  wings  and  leaves  it  all  a  worm. 

CLIX. 

To  buy  and  sell,  adventure  and  get  gain, 

To  win  the  most  and  yield  the  least  to  others, 

Leads  an  inversive  whirl  into  the  brain, 

The  Spirit  of  God's  righteousness  that  smothers, 
The  care-worn  race  unsisters  and  unbrothers, 

And  makes  the  form  of  life  a  prostitution. 
The  tropic  of  the  heart  it  aye  unsummers ; 

Ravels  the  racial  wreath  to  dissolution  : 

Poisons  load  every  vein  from  vileness  in  transfusion. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  63 

TRAFFIC    IN     LILISTAN. 

In  Lilistan  there  is  no  Trading  Class. — 

One  said,  '  0  king,  nay,  there  is  much  of  trade, 
And  many  they  who  glorious  wealth  amass. 

Behold  them,  in  the  private  time  arrayed. 

Each  for  his  specialty  the  knights  enblade. 
I  am  an  artist  of  such  implements 

As  serve  where  ladyhood  is  well  displayed ; 
Where  lyres  and  violins  give  rich  consents, 
And  music  by  the  reed  serves  well  for  glad  intents. 

CLXI. 

'  Truly,  I  make  a  merchandise  of  these  ; 

Or  rather  she  of  me  makes  merchandise. 
The  ladies  traffic  by  the  kissing  knees ; 

They  lead  a  commerce  where  they  unitise, 

And  for  delight  win  many  a  costly  prize. 
We  fashion  works,  then  fitly  they  disburse. 

See,  as  it  is  with  thine,  so  'tis  with  these. 
Thou  who  hast  won  God's  Penny  for  thy  purse, 
From  land  to  land  afar  she  traffics  by  thy  verse. 

CLXII. 

1  Mine  own  one,  she  buys  things ;  she  bought  a  bird, 

And  I  involved  it  in  a  music-shell.' — 
An  instrument  anear  him  thrilled  and  stirred. 

'There,'  cried  he,  "tis  awakening  for  the  tell.' 

The  lines  of  its  ascension  wrought  a  swell 
Of  rippling  melody :  he  touched  the  strings. 

Ne'er  Straduarius  wrought  such  miracle. 
The  living  violin,  it  laughs,  it  sings ; 
The  charm  of  social  life  leaps  fluttering  from  its  wings. 


64  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CLXIIL 

I  touched  the  instrument ;  it  gave  a  wail 

That  broke  into  an  infant's  voice  of  grief. 
*  Ah/  cried  he,  '  sorrows  from  your  heart  unvail : 

Tis  by  the  music-shells  hearts  find  relief. 

They  ne'er  misgive ;  what  man  hath  in  his  sheaf 
Shakes  through  them  to  diffuse  and  to  reveal. 

Some  babe  begotten  in  an  unbelief 
You  hold  below  by  sympathies  that  feel. 
The  hidden  word-seed's  pain  stirs  here  to  unconceal.' 

CLXIV. 

He  took  the  instrument  and  held  it  high 

Above  my  head ;  then  touched  it  for  a  strain : 

There  it  discoursed  a  wondrous  melody ; 
Desire,  delight,  divinity  in  pain, 
Yearning  and  prophecy  and  high  disdain 

Of  mercenary  commerce  and  its  vice. 

He  pressed  soft  hands  the  music  to  restrain 

And  spake,  '  Upon  God's  gifts  we  set  no  price : 

Thou  knowest,  well  as  I,  Love  rules  in  paradise. 

CLXV. 

'  But  Christianism  ever  bastardises : 

It  sets  a  price  where  God  has  bred  a  gift : 
It  crowns  the  Ignoble,  that  Heaven  despises  : 

It  chokes  Love's  commerce  in  a  wintry  drift : 

It  germs  cupidity, — a  snake  to  lift 
Through  the  babe's  bosom  and  its  lips  rose-red  : — 

To  lines  of  strife  and  scorn  makes  outcry  swift. 
So  life  in  disobedience  is  led : 
The  serpent  is  its  guide ;  the  serpent  chains  its  bed.' 


S  T  A  K  -  F  L  O  W  E  R  S  .  65 

4. 

KITCHEN  MAID:   DOLLY. 

Warm-hearted,  glowing  kitchen  girl, 

Called  for  a  sport-name,  'Dolly/ 
Spun  round  and  round :  she  wrought  a  whirl 

That  turned  on  melancholy  ; 

That  wove  into  a  glorious  glee 

With  unborn  blisses  laden. 
I  saw,  and  murmured  silently, 

'God's  blessing  on  the  maiden.' 

The  feet  of  lady  Issa  flow 

Into  her  feet  for  dances  : 
'Tis  thus  to  God  for  morn  aglow 

The  kitchen  girl  advances. 

The  lilies  toil  not,  neither  spin ; 

They  hold  no  private  wishes ; 
Yet  for  their  bridal  gifts  they  win 

Gold  cups  and  crystal  dishes. 

Feet  that  touch  Issa's  holy  feet ; 

Hands  that  her  purpose  carry ; 
Hearts  that  for  service  but  compete ; 

Lips  that  to  kindness  marry ; 

Ah,  they  have  found  the  better  part  : 

The  Pure  Ideal  Beauty 
Weaves  through  them  by  divinest  art, 

Whilst  they  are  lost  in  duty. 

vi  9 


STAR-FLOWERS. 

Of  such  as  these  the  kingdom  is ; 

For  such  the  kingdom's  treasure : 
They  serve  the  Lady  of  the  Bliss 

Who  gives  through  food  for  pleasure. 

5. 
KITCHEN  QUEEN:    ALENA. 

Her  shadow-form  has  touched  the  snow : 
Her  love-life  beams  with  God  aglow. 
Old  girl,  young  girl,  by  pot  and  pan 
Thou  holdest  up  to  Lilistan. 

Wise  woman,  skilled  in  household  cheer, 
Strong  sweetness  in  the  kitchen-sphere, 
Thence  dates  for  glorious  hours  to  thee 
Love's  charter  of  nobility. 

Thou  gavest  all,  but  last  and  best 
A  heart  for  kitchen  gifts  that  prest. 
Warm  hands,  now  in  the  dish-pan  wet, 
Their  heavenly  lusters  kindle  yet. 

She  who  the  labor-crown  bestows 
So  in  the  household  use  foreshows. 
Gifts  that  make  good  for  daily  bread 
Lead  to  the  household's  Glorious  Head ; 

Lead  where  the  bread  of  God  reflowers 
Heart,  mind  and  flesh  for  heavenly  hours ; 
Lead  where  Love's  morning  lights  unfurl 
God's  glory  round  the  kitchen  girl. 


STAR-FLOWERS. 


TRAFFIC-CURSE. 


G7 


The  man  whose  life  transposes  into  God 
Can  hardly  venture  from  the  close  retreat, 

To  mingle  with  the  mortal  race  abroad. 
Their  greed  of  private  gain  begets  a  heat 
That  germs  for  stinging  parasites,  to  meet 

His  frame  that  fashions  for  the  grand  eighth  sense. 
The  gain-greed  steams  by  stenches  from  the  feet ; 

The  foul  injections  by  their  breaths  dispense : 

They  stand  clothed  all  with  curse,  walled  in  by  death's  intense. 

CLXVII. 

That  curse,  grown  mighty,  by  its  generals 

Encompasses  the  cities  of  mankind. 
The  rich,  the  poor,  closed  in  ungracious  walls 

Against  their  better  being  war  ;  they  grind 

Each  other ;  self-illumined,  wordly  blind  : 
They  cry,  'If  there  be  God  why  doth  he  vail?' 

Their  nostrils,  to  the  kennel  filth  inclined, 
Inhale  but  for  corruption ;  they  enscale 
The  greed-snake  round  their  loins,  then  ask,  'why  virtues 
fail?' 

CLXVIII. 

Were  there  a  general  dying  of  self-greed 

The  universe  would  ope  through  occult  doors. 

Did  men  but  for,  not  on  each  other  feed, 
The  life  would  crystalise  to  golden  ores : 
Their  bodies  would  shine  forth  as  tropic  shores, 

And  they  would  lean  to  mutual  helping  so 
As  fruit-trees  laden,  lifting  from  the  floors 

Of  paradise,  aye  bearing  to  bestow. 

Man,  made  like  God  by  gifts,  would  beam  like  God  to  show. 


68  STAR-F  LOWERS, 

CLXIX. 

From  the  street  gamin  downward  to  the  king ; 

From  the  foul  kennel  doomward  to  the  throne ; 
From  the  thieve's  conclave  to  the  priestly  ring ; 

From  capital's  gorged  flesh  to  labor's  bone, 

Earth's  curse,  the  greed  of  private  gain,  has  grown : 
"Pis  generated  in  the  marriage  bed : 

It  claims  mankind  and  rules  it  for  its  own. 
Nursed  by  the  ages  to  uplifted  head, 
It  dominates  the  race,  the  High  One-Twain  instead. 

CLXX. 

It  whirls  mankind  in  fevered  competition. 

Jewry  has  triumphed  o'er  the  Nazarene  : 
If  yet  a  lingering  scripture  shows  to  vision, 

The  God  who  is  the  Gospel  is  unseen. 

Men  by  an  hideous  enchantment  lean 
Where  golden  serpents  fashion  to  a  wall : 

'Twixt  heart  and  heart  the  reptiles  intervene, 
From  lip  to  lip  they  sting  and  spawn  and  coil. 
How  can  man  touch  to  God  ?  his  touch-sense  feels  to  spoil. 

CLXXI. 

Men  breathe  into  each  other's  lungs  and  find 

The  pleasure  of  the  lust,  such  heats  distilling 
That  the  fierce  appetite  o'erflows  the  mind, 

Till  manias  rise  their  evil  end  fulfilling. 

Parents  infuse  it  through  their  offspring,  killing 
The  nascent  instinct  of  fraternity. 

Homes,  altars,  courts,  they  redden  for  the  spilling 
Of  Christ's  warm  blood  that  flows  in  babes  to  be. 
Lord  Murder  slays  by  form ;  that  form  Society. 


69 


CLXXII. 

When  man  arises  o'er  his  kind  victorious 

And  wins  great  riches  for  a  self-estate, 
The  dragon  in  that  nature-self  lifts  glorious. 

The  Power  that  makes  the  People  desolate 

Seems  to  hold  all  things  by  a  sovereign  fate  : 
It  dazzles  priests  and  women  by  its  glare. 

False  providence  shines  in  the  fortunate-: 
The  strong  gods  are  the  gods  that  nations  bear  ; 
These  are  the  gods  of  Earth  ;  others  but  wraiths  of  air. 

MERCY-OIL. 

'Tis  the  heroic  Truth  that  saveth  nations  : 

Men  tire  of  gods  made  for  a  Sunday  show.  — 
One  said  to  me,  '  0  king,  the  imprecations 

Almost  upon  your  lips  begin  to  glow.' 

I  answered,  "Nay,  but  I  am  in  a  woe." 
He  spake,  'My  wife  gave  oil  within  the  knee, 

And  I  am  here  a  mercy  to  bestow. 
The  occult  form  of  thy  paternity 
Is  wounded  by  the  grief  that  flows  from  infancy.' 

CLXXIV. 

\ 

I  laughed  about  the  oil,  and  whence  it  grew  ; 

But  he  spake  grandly,  '  Sure,  the  oil  is  good  : 
Out  of  her  arm-pits  this,  the  other,  drew.' 

He  reached  a  kindness  to  me  where  I  stood. 

I  smelled  his  vial  ;  —  came  a  pungent  flood 
Of  comforts  in  the  motherly  delight  ; 

Precious  aromas  rich  with  ladyhood, 
As  if  a  band  of  wives  in  one  made  flight, 
Disbursing  to  distil  a  virtue  from  their  might. 


70  STAR-FLOWERS. 

RICH   AND  POOR. 

The  wealth  of  modern  years  is  in  the  minds 

Of  cultured  and  expert  sagacity  ; 
Not  in  the  unskilled  plebes,  rugged  hinds  : 

They  are  but  implements  of  industry. 

Strong  men  sustain  Earth's  frail  society, 
And  by  their  method  serve  its  providence. 

In  them  the  heavens  with  earth  seek  unity, 
Diffuse  by  wisdom  and  by  worth  condense  : 
Not  by  self-might  alone  do  such  hold  eminence. 

CLXXVL 

In  the  world's  feet  the  proletariat  shows, 
But  those  are  in  the  constellated  brain. 

Little  of  toil  the  unskilled  laborer  knows 
More  than  the  animal,  that  roams  the  plain 
And  rests  at  sunset,  careless,  unprofane : 

The  mind  has  toiled  not  in  the  body's  toil : 
By  physical  repose  his  powers  regain. 

If  scant  the  recompense  yet  sure  the  spoil ; 

In  Freedom's  land  no  lack  of  corn  and  wine  and  oil. 

CLXXVIL 

Banks  break  but  still  his  life-staff  is  unbroken : 
Small  dividends  the  corporations  pay, 

Yet  the  day's  labor,  commonly  bespoken, 

Still  yields  him  more  than  need  subserve  the  day : 
His  mate  hath  all  she  would  for  plain  array : 

Their  babes  are  educated  by  the  State  : 
He  meets  the  rich  man  as  a  peer  alway : 

His  civic  liberties  hold  firm  as  fate 

And  the  rewards  of  toil  but  seldom  may  abate. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  71 

CLXXVIII. 

The  great  rich  men,  the  labor  kings,  are  workers , 

By  day,  by  night ;  their  ways  are  lined  with  swords, 
More  than  old  paladins  and  grim  berserkers, 

While  yet  they  seem  to  move  o'er  peaceful  boards. 

War,  organised  in  them  by  deeds  and  words, 
Leads  a  terrific  combat  through  the  years. 

Shifting,  unstable,  are  the  gathered  hoards. 
Wealth  is  a  golden  sand  that  disappears : 
Its  care  demands  a  strife,  with  thoughts  made  sharp  as  spears. 

CLXXIX. 

The  few  great  workers  win  a  large  result ; 

The  many  end  with  barely  competence. 
Yet  those  who  win,  small  time  do  they  exult ; 

Cares  load  upon  them  with  the  opulence : 

Still  their  best  gain  is  the  experience. 
Riches  when  gathered  fail  to  satisfy : 

The  stately  household  with  its  huge  expense 
Proves  all  but  vanity  of  vanity. 
Finding  their  golden  goal,  the  satisfactions  die. 

CLXXX. 

'Tis  in  the  building,  not  in  the  possession 

Of  fortune,  that  some  happiness  is  met ; 
The  leading  forth  of  powers  from  their  repression 

To  keenness  like  Von  Moltke's  bayonet ; 

The  training  of  abilities,  to  set 
The  feet  upon  disaster  and  to  climb 

Higher  and  higher,  building,  shaping  yet 
Systems  of  operation  as  a  rhyme, 
Subduing  to  man's  use  the  new  and  teeming  prime, 


TL  ST  AH-FLOWERS  . 

CLXXXI. 

But  when  all  this  is  done  ensues  a  sorrow. 

In  the  third  generation  rich  men's  heirs 
Descend  again :  they  toil  not  but  they  borrow : 

They  fall,  entangled  in  the  social  snares : 

Wealth  has  unfitted  them  to  meet  the  cares 
And  bear  the  burdens  of  the  common  fate. 

The  future  to  the  rich  man  ever  wears 
Disastrous  colors  where  the  babes  await. 
He  sees  the  coming  years  his  seed  that  desolate. 

CLXXXII. 

He  views  the  grandson  as  a  foolish  dude, 

Wasting  the  hard-won  wealth  in  vain  profusion ; 

His  name  decaying  in  a  vicious  brood 
Of  paupers  miring  in  a  vile  illusion : 
His  labor-epic  finds  this  ill  conclusion. 

The  proletary  hopes  his  offspring's  rise : 
The  gold-king  fears  for  his  foul  dissolution, 

Wound  in  the  coil  of  evil  destinies. 

He  won,  but  not  for  long  may  he  transmit  the  prize. 

CLXXXIII. 

To  build  a  fortune  is  to  rear  a  throne  : 

To  keep  it,  life  must  be  wrought  into  walls. 

The  labor-lords  beneath  their  burdens  groan ; 
Their  hopes  decease  long  ere  the  funerals : 
They  tread  where  care  looms  up  till  it  appals ; 

They  dread  the  social  cyclone  that  awaits ; 
They  sense  the  fiery  Nemesis  who  calls 

Through  hungry  myriads,  scourged  by  evil  fates : 

The  People's  want  in  them  a  misery  creates. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  73 

CLXXXIV. 

Joy  dwells  not  splendid  in  the  palaces ; 

'Tis  a  free  bird,  that  shuns  the  gilded  cage 
To  plume  her  wings  amid  the  wildnesses, 

Where  simple  folk  in  lowly  toil  engage. 

The  strong  rich  man  awearies  of  his  age, 
Shielding  his  wealth  against  the  parasites, 

Whilst  heirs  grow  hungry  for  their  heritage. 
In  secret  dreams,  in  visions  of  the  nights, 
Strong  Nature,  that  he  served,  to  slay  him  fiercely  fights. 

CLXXXV. 

Rich  men  are  often  better  than  they  seem, 

As  poor  men  happier  than  they  think  or  know. 

Wealth  is  a  condor  and  we  hear  her  scream, 
Gold-glittering  from  the  cliffs  above  the  snow : 
That  sound  of  triumph  may  be  cry  of  woe. 

There  grows  a  savage  hunger  in  the  breast : 
Wealth  lifts  a  man,  but  isolates  him  so, 

Till  he  is  fain  within  the  grave  to  rest 

From  treasures  that  were  vain  and  gainings  that  opprest. 

A    RAILWAY     KING. 

I  saw  by  occult  modes  a  Millionaire  : 

His  style  was  grand,  his  house  magnificent, 
Yet  hunger  in  his  breast  had  made  its  lair. 

Great  powers  were  his,  and  some  had  found  a  vent 

In  railwaying  to  serve  a  continent ; 
But,  formed  by  genius  for  a  people's  man, 

Success  and  splendor  wrought  to  small  content. 
Soliloquising  thus  his  mind  began, 
Lifting  a  flood  of  thought  as  hungry  waves  that  ran. — 
vilO 


74  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CLXXXVII. 

1  Here  stand  I  like  a  tenpin  at  the  head 

To  hold  a  footing  on  the  alley's  floor ; 
Here,  while  the  saints  think  I  am  warm  abed, 

And  possibly  with  some  delightful  whore. 

Here  am  I,  sound  and  healthy  to  the  core, 
Keeping  good  order  by  the  moral  law, 

Loving  my  neighbors.     I  a  rich  man  ?  poor ! 
There's  not  a  brakesman,  if  my  heart  he  saw, 
Would  change  for  this  good  bed  his  bunk  well  filled  with  straw. 

CLXXXVIII. 

'  Cook,  butler,  coachman,  liveried  at  that ; 

Fat  bank  account,  fair  gardens  all  atrim ; 
I  live  among  them  like  a  watchful  rat, 

While  poor  men  think  my  visage,  gay  or  grim, 

Shines  for  the  hour  almost  with  seraphim. 
Trades-unions  howl  and  knights  of  labor  curse ; 

The  traffic  is  suspended  at  their  whim. 
Hundreds  of  hungry  families  I  nurse, 
And  still  'less  hours,  more  pay/  as  if  I  held  God's  purse. 

CLXXXIX. 

'  Men  eye  me  oft  as  if  I  were  a  thief. 

0  envy,  envy ! — Me,  they  envy  me ! 
What  if  I  quaff  champagne  for  a  relief? 

What  if  snug  dinners  make  my  luxury, 

And  music  mingles  with  my  reverie  ? 
What  if  my  art-surroundings  give  a  show  ? 

What  if  I  live  as  rather  lavishly  ? 
I  can  make  thousands  into  millions  grow 
And  heap  a  city's  wealth  by  what  I  could  bestow, 


STAB-FLOWERS.  75 

cxc. 

c  Put  care  into  your  pipe  and  smoke  it ! — Well, 

I  do  smoke  care  and  Care  smokes  me, — the  joker. 
Against  the  situation  I  rebel. 

What  if  I  spin  a  yarn  or  play  at  poker  ? 

I  should  grow  jaundiced,  colored  all  as  ochre, 
Until  the  lazy  liver  swamped  the  brain : 

I  might  perhaps  become  a  whiskey  soaker, 
But  for  these  joys  that  ease  awhile  my  pain. — 
Thank  God  my  heart  is  sound ;  my  honor  knows  no  stain. 

CXCI. 

'  Now  I  could  take  a  thousand  gentlemen 

And  make  of  them  good  railway  engineers ; 
Then  build  their  town.— What  if  I  built  it  ?  then 

A  growing  city  to  my  view  appears, 

Where  a  gigantic  industry  uprears. 
My  working  people  hive  in  palaces. — 

Fond  visions !  there  are  not  enow  of  years. 
Had  I  a  life  to  last  for  centuries, 
I  would  begin  at  once  for  purposes  like  these. 

CXCII. 

'  But  soon  the  worms  will  feed  upon  my  skin, 

As  Vanderbilt,  though  not  as  rich  as  he. 
Some  alley  ball  will  strike  the  foremost  pin, 

And  other  railway  presidents  agree 

To  show  respectful  sorrow  in  their  glee. 
Meanwhile  what  is  God  doing?  does  He  know 

That  here  I  stand,  in  all  sincerity, 
If  there  were  but  a  real  God  below, 
To  be  a  working-man,  just  on  His  roads  to  go  ? 


76  STAJt*#LOWEflS< 

CXCIIL 

'  Men  think  of  me  that  I  am  rather  careless 

About  religion,  though  I  pay  respect. 
Were  there  a  Goddess,  beautiful  and  peerless, 

Proud  should  I  be  Her  banners  to  erect. 

I'd  teach  my  lips  another  dialect 
And  cease  to  jest  of  purchasable  charms. 

Mother  instilled  the  instinct  to  protect, 
Ere  011  her  breast  I  smiled  to  feel  her  arms. — 
Vain,  vain ! — the  thought  of  it  but  thrills  me  to  alarms. 

CXCIV. 

'  Woman  needs  Goddess,  just  as  man  needs  God. 

We  stray  as  orphans  in  a  lonely  void, 
Till  the  white  worms  crawl  to  us  from  the  sod. 

We  are  among  ourselves  but  hearts  destroyed : 

Poor  mortals  have  the  virgin  gold  alloyed : 
The  stench  of  selfishness  corrupts  our  sweets. 

For  bastardies  our  vigors  are  deployed : 
We  toil,  then  sicken  of  our  carnal  heats. — 
Vain,  vain!  my  heart  for  death  but  hammers  while  it  beats. '- 

cxcv. 

Such  men  cannot  be  reached  by  any  scripture : 

They  need  a  gospel,  made  as  they  are  made, 
In  human  flesh  and  blood  for  architecture, 

And  from  the  Goddess-God  for  them  portrayed 

In  living  lines  and  blessedly  arrayed 
Through  full  divineness  for  the  common  good. 

They  wait  till  respiration's  fiery  blade 
Shall  ope  their  bosoms  for  the  Mother's  flood : 
They  wait  as  for  blithe  Spring  awaits  the  wintry  wood. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  77 

'     6. 

GOD     NINETEENTH     CENTURY. 

Should  God  show  now,  His  name  must  be 
Not  'First'  but  'Nineteenth  Century/ 
To  prove  Divinity  again 
Amid  the  strong  sagacious  men  ; — 
Must  reach  the  practical  of  life 
Through  chieftains  of  the  labor-strife, 
And,  for  the  efforts  that  disthrall, 
In  rich  men  store  His  capital ; — 
In  the  wise  wealthy  who  create 
Productive  systems  for  the  State  ; 
Who  multiply  the  common  bread, 
Serving  the  Nation's  laborhead. 

Thus  from  this  far  estate  I  yearn 
By  thoughts  that  make  a  long  return, 
While  from  the  sacred  People's  will 
Rich  vigors  for  the  verse  distil. 
The  hands  to  touch  the  planet  fire, 
The  lungs  to  reach  its  breast  respire. 
By  the  full  strength  of  social  man 
The  shade-form  holds  from  Lilistan  ; 
Till  now,  where  I  but  weave  a  lay, 
Airs  of  the  Mother's  breast  shall  play ; 
Till  where  I  now  but  touch  the  hearse 
God's  wealth  shall  open  from  its  purse. 

I  see  the  end  of  all  the  toils  : 
Love-life  ascends  to  charge  the  soils  : 
Love-light  descends,  from  heaven  aglow, 
To  penetrate  through  minds  below, 
Till  light  and  life  commingle  so. 
Though  years  of  toil  pass  like  a  day, 
Patience !  the  End  will  not  delay. 


78  STAR-FLOWERS. 

UNIVERSALIST:  BARNUM. 

Take  the  Great  Showman  for  a  last  example ; 

Take  Phineas  Barnum ;  he  whose  fame  consists 
In  the  high  priesthood  of  the  circus-temple ; 

That  gay,  sagacious  Universalist, 

Whose  vast  placards  no  village  may  resist ; 
"Who  liveth,  as  would  seem,  but  to  evoke 

Gold  as  the  rain-cloud,  silver  as  the  mist, 
From  the  vast  hoax  and  the  perpetual  joke  ; 
Who  withers  like  the  worm  yet  spreadeth  as  the  oak. 

CXLVIL 

He  is  far  better  known  than  Jesus  Christ, 
From  Texan  fire-blast  to  Canadian  snow, 

By  the  small  folk  he  has  imparadised 
Within  his  vast  perambulating  show. — 
1  Love  God :  be  merry. '     It  was  long  ago 

This  legend  on  his  private  coach  I  read. 

Eeligion  through  his  spring-tide  made  a  flow ; 

He  was  too  kind  to  think  God  wrought  a  bed 

Of  everlasting  wrath  whereto  men's  feet  were  led. 

CXCVIII. 

He  illustrates  a  not  uncommon  type 

Of  thinkers  in  the  small  religious  cell, 
But  holds  a  mind,  sagacious,  largely  ripe, 

Intent  on  worldly  enterprise  to  dwell. 

He  is  a  fruit-tree  that  did  never  swell 
To  ope  the  best  buds  in  their  sheathes  concealed ; 

A  baby  giant  in  a  stony  shell ; 
A  fount  from  flowings  by  the  frost  congealed; 
A  man  to  serve  in  men,  had  Time  but  wrought  a  field. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  79 

CXCIX. 

He  dwelleth  there  beside  the  Housatonic, 

In  the  luxurious  villa  of  his  age  ; 
His  face  part  kind,  part  shrewd  and  part  sardonic. 

The  vast  experience,  that  hath  made  him  sage 

In  skill  the  battle  of  the  world  to  wage, 
Leaves  little  that  he  values  in  mankind : 

Yet  one  small  flower  spreads  on  his  bosom's  page, 
Perchance,  though  hard  'mid  ranker  growths  to  find. — 
He  hopes  to  find  God's  heaven  in  verities  enshrined. 

CC. 

He  hopes  a  world  of  pure  benevolence, 

Where  there  is  merriment  in  rich  content ; 
Where  men  fraternally  God's  gifts  dispense, 

And  passions  are  burnt  out  and  sorrow  spent, 

And  happy  nations  by  a  sweet  consent 
Adore  Lord  Jesus  for  their  Joyful  King. 

In  surface-thought,  though  far  with  Plutus  blent, 
He  hopes  some  hour  from  Mammon's  yoke  to  fling ; 
Hopes  to  hear  Chapin  preach  anew  and  Jenny  sing. 

CGI. 

One  said  to  me,  'Hold  there,  hold  there  a  few, — ' 

A  sage  who  bore  a  parrot  on  his  fist. 
By  his  wise  art  the  bird  enlarged  to  view, 

Shaped  as  a  winged  babe,  spread  forth  a  mist, 

Then  poised  again  as  imaged  to  persist, 
But  in  a  small  boy's  voice  called,  'Phineas!' 

A  stately  woman  to  my  vision  kissed ; 
The  image  to  her  bosom  made  a  pass 
And  vanished  in  it  so  as  shadows  in  a  glass, 


80  STAR-FLOWERS. 

COIL 

The  plain  strong  lady  of  New  England  stalk 

Showed  in  her  by  the  lines  of  ancestry. 
The  parrot  from  its  cell  made  in  her  talk 

A  speaking  voice ;  yet  rich  and  loverly 

Came  the  bird's  accents  wrought  for  song  to  be, 
Till  as  in  some  ripe  fruit  it  closed  its  bill. — 

'Twas  thus  she  spake,  all  in  a  reverie, 
'  By  this  charmed  bird  I  work  my  wifely  will : 
He  whom  you  Phineas  name  was,  is,  my  husband  still. 

com. 

'He  hates  deception,  though  he  leans  to  it 

And  lends  thereto  a  wealthiness  and  style. 
He  loves  to  see  the  biters  snared  and  bit ; 

But  more  loves  woman, — loves  her  mile  on  mile; 

Loves  on  while  scorning  her  for  worldly  guile. 
His  sexuality  is  full  and  firm, 

And  holds  into  him  by  an  artful  wile  : 
There  is  a  bud  infolded  in  the  worm, 
A  spark  of  one-twain  life,  a  true  and  living  germ. 

CCIV. 

1  So,  if  God  came  to  him, — before  the  eyes, — 

Made  palpable  in  the  Orie-Twain  of  Eight, 
He  would  bow  down  with  many  broken  sighs 

And  open  of  his  life  to  God  for  sight, — 

Behold  he  loveth, — for  a  little  might 
To  clasp  the  knees  of  God  in  sacrifice. 

If  he  saw  Heaven  descending  in  delight, 
As  by  his  thoughts  that  universalise, 
Youth  would  push  forth  through  age,  for  service  to  arise,' 


STAR-FLOWERS.  81 

CCV. 

Her  name  is  Charity ;  her  hands  are  large 

And  strong,  as  those  the  People's  gift  that  bring  : 
From  her  full  bosom  sacred  mights  emerge : 

Vast  are  her  powers  that  serve  for  comforting. 

She  wooed  the  parrot  forth ;  it  made  a  ring 
In  the  warm  air  around  her ;  then  took  flight, 

Called  '  Phineas,  Phineas ! '  by  its  pleasuring 
Transposed ;  then  vanished  in  the  lower  night, 
The  Showman's  breast  to  find  and  warm  it  by  delight. 

CCVI. 

Things  of  the  Earth  are  not  as  they  appear, 

Seen  from  this  view-point ;  oft  they  rise  and  surge 
Almost  to  shock  the  vision  with  a  fear : 

Faces  of  apes  through  prelates  may  emerge, — 

Faces  that  nearly  touch  the  broken  verge 
Where  culture  twines  to  imbecility. 

Through  lips  of  laughing-breath  may  ply  the  scourge ;  — 
Contempt,  scorn,  hate  livid  with  cruelty. 
Yea,  men  are  seen  heads  down,  back  turned  from  God  to  be. 

CCVII. 

Enough. — Let  falsehood  perish ! — and  it  will. 

Let  Truth  enforce  its  royalty : — it  must. 
Let  righteousness  by  holiness  distil. 

When  immortality  shall  crown  the  just, 

Many  shall  rise  whose  lines  show  now  but  dust, 
Who  yet  hold  gifts  to  serve  the  Mother's  way. 

Earth  shrines  a  mighty  revenue  in  trust, — 
Experienced  men  who  know  their  kind  to  sway, 
And  they  shall  touch  to  God,  and  live  when  God  makes  day. 
vill 


82  STAR-FLOWERS. 

GRADATION:   HORACE  GREELEY. 

There  the  great  Journalist!  beside  a  stream, 

Down  in  Gradation,  Horace  Greeley  sat, 
As  rousing  from  some  introspective  dream. 

His  sight  touched  where  a  small  gray  water-rat 

Made  eyes  to  him  as  glancing  at  a  cat. 
One  said,  'The  animal  casts  eyes  on  you.' 

'Yes/  cried  the  Sage,  'hear  him  croak  'democrat!' 
The  damned  old  frog  comes  here,  where  I  pursue 
My  private  thoughts  and  holds  New  York  before  my  view.' 

CCIX. 

With  a  quaint  sprinkling  of  profanity, 

Which  need  not  be  repeated,  he  went  on, 
'Seward  and  Weed  both  damned  to  hell  should  be.' 

His  thoughts  to  their  old  battle-times  had  gone. 

But  he  aroused,  '  New  soil  I  tread  upon ; 
That  is  a  rat:'  his  voice  rang  cheerily: 

He  felt  his  pockets  for  a  benison, 
And  found  a  scrap  of  bread :  well  pleased  was  he  : 
The  shy  beast  came  and  fed,  tasting  felicity. 

OCX. 

Greeley  was  large,  but  greatened  with  a  twist : 

A  people's  man,  made  for  his  generation ; 
Born  with  the  instincts  of  the  Socialist ; 

Wise  and  laborious  in  his  own  vocation ; 

Yet  his  a  mania  for  official  station, 
That  on  him,  in  him,  with  him,  for  him  fed. 

Vain,  though  with  seeming  lack  of  ostentation, 
Shrewd  parasites  his  feet  to  follies  led  : 
Insanity  draped  all  with  cold  his  nuptial  bed. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  83 

CCXI. 

No  man  more  ignorant,  yet  few  more  wise : 

No  man  who  thought  he  knew  himself  so  well : 
No  man  more  warm  to  self-idolatries : 

No  man  more  generous,  fettered  by  a  spell ; 

More  prone  from  honest  counsel  to  rebel ; 
To  think  a  circle  where  wras  but  a  line ; 

To  spurn  a  fruit  yet  consecrate  the  shell : — 
He  made  his  life  an.  overshadowing  vine 
Whose  falling  leaves  he  held  as  grapes  for  God's  new  wine. 

CCXII. 

He  could  not  think  beyond  the  commonplace, 

Yet  he  could  feel  into  the  People's  heart. 
His  greatness  held  a  vacancy  in  space  : 

He  cherished  rancors  with  a  burning  smart : 

Good  manners  held  he  ever  as  apart : 
Of  knightly  courtesy  he  made  contempt. 

His  ways  were  like  his  breeding,  rude  and  swart  : 
His  wras  a  peasant  mind,  misclad,  unkempt. 
As  journalist  he  knew ;  of  all  beyond  he  dreampt. 

CCXIII. 

He  deemed  himself  a  miracle  of  brain : 

His  coldness  he  thought  chastity ;  his  house 
A  temple  that  touched  not  to  the  profane. 

Enough  thought  he  the  woman  of  his  vows 

To  feel  that  she  had  Greeley  for  a  spouse ; 
And  so  they  dwelt  and  played  illumination ; 

Their  souls  in  spiritism  led  to  browse, 
Half  for  religion,  half  for  recreation, 
Till  the  reaction  came  and  left  a  desolation. 


84  StAR'FLOWERS, 

CCXIV. 

She  to  the  sect  styled  <  Eoman  apostolic/ 

Training  her  babes  upon  the  nun's  cold  knee ; 
He  from  his  comrades  turning  in  a  colic 

Of  harsh  political  morality ; 

Finding  a  welcome  in  Democracy ; 
Storming  to  station  by  the  rebel  yell. 

Greeley  the  President  hoped  so  to  be. 
Then  as  the  bubble  broke  his  reason  fell : 
Yet  he  loved  God  and  man,  not  wisely  oft  but  well. 

ccxv. 

Great  but  unordered  dwells  he  in  Gradation, 

Where  Chapin  preaches  mixed  in  cold  and  warm ; 

Where  Ripley  thinks  of  social  elevation ; 

Where  Channing  finds  a  growing  new  Brook  Farm, 
And  more  than  Paris  weaves  a  wondrous  charm 

For  socialistic  transcendental  folk ; 

Where  the  brain-beetles  in  dusk  twilight  swarm, 

And  nymphs  and  scholars  try  the  labor-yoke, 

But  half  in  earnest  yet,  and  mystic  powers  evoke* 

CCXVI. 

New  Boston  groweth  there,  a  vital  city, 

A  psyche  slipping  slow  from  its  cocoon  : 
Its  milky  breasts,  cased  over  hard  and  gritty, 

Yet  shape  to  weave  for  ladyhood  its  moon. 

There  cultured  Unitarians,  part  in  swoon, 
Suffer  until  they  strive  to  socialise. — 

I  saw  Lord  Christ ;  He  entered  for  a  boon, 
Showing  a  Lady  for  their  wondering  eyes, 
Shaping  from  out  his  side,  as  Eve  to  paradise. 


STAR-FLOWERS*  85 

CCXVII. 

But  Greeley  when  he  saw  Her  cried,  '  Be  damned ! 

There's  Harris  come  again ; '  he  swelled  a  bladder 
Of  false  air  in  his  belly :  then  he  rammed 

His  head  as  colored  persons  fight ;  grown  madder, 

He  shook  till  from  his  ventrals  wound  an  adder, 
The  worm  of  self-conceit.     Our  Mother  came. 

She  beamed:  he  cried,  'I  see  a  Jacob's  ladder.' 
'  Ha,  ha ! '  he  laughed,  <  'tis  in  my  breast  a  shame. 
Methinks  'twas  thus  of  old  Israel  saw  angels  flame .' 

CCXVIII. 

She  touched  him  on  the  forehead ;  then  he  rose  : 

His  bestness  grew  upon  him  :  he  shed  tears  : 
Her  hand  upon  his  breast  wrought  overflows, 

Shaping  a  rosy  flower  of  love-in-spears  : 

It  pricked  him  :  vigors  of  immortal  years 
Shot  through  the  pain :  his  bowed  and  shambling  form 

Dropped  like  an  anciejit  garment ;  memoried  fears 
Vanished ;  sweet  love-winds  wrought  a  kissing  -storm : 
His  pallid  face  grew  bright ;  its  aspect  blithe  and  warm. 

NEW   BOSTON:    ASSOCIATION. 

There  grows  in  man  a  fateful  energy 

By  the  first  form  of  pure  association. 
The  hundred  knights  of  a  commandery 

Are  one  for  the  celestial  respiration : 

Their  unity  admits  no  segregation, 
Implexiated  through  each  other's  breasts : 

Their  service  moves  by  truth-iii-adoration, 
But  Ladyhood  within  them  moves  and  rests 
And  Manhood  in  her  house  of  its  old  style  divests. 


86  STAR-FLOWERS. 

ccxx. 

One  said  to  me,  '  0  king,  New  Boston  flashes 

A  line  of  bloom  upon  its  line  of  snow. 
Thought  there  is  lifting  from  the  dust  and  ashes. 

A  small  one-twainness  thus  begins  to  show. 

Some  to  Brook  Farm  a-pilgrimage  do  go  : 
There  mother  Bipley  has  an  hundred  nuns, 

And,  when  these  virtuous  Bostonians  flow 
By  sympathies  to  meet  the  shining  ones, 
The  ice  of  their  cold  thought  as  trickling  water  runs. 

CCXXI. 

'They  have  a  Cupid  there,  one  father  Taylor, 

For  chaplain  of  the  familistery. 
He  loved  of  old  to  christianise  the  sailor. 

He  wears  our  Lady's  garter  at  his  knee, 

Crimson  and  gold  and  blue :  he  speaketh  free 
Brave  words,  illumined  with  the  passion-sign  : 

He  preacheth  of  the  sexual  mystery, 
And  how  God,  Lord  and  Lady,  doth  entwine 
Through  womanhood  alway  to  w^eave  the  social  vine.'— 

NEW  BOSTON:   THEODORE  PARKER. 

New  Boston  has  a  fashion  of  its  own : 

'Tis  full  of  latent  intellectual  vigor, 
Yet  touches  closely  to  the  arctic  zone, 

Cased  in  the  colds  of  individual  rigor. 

In  belly-pinch  and  brain-excess  they  figure : 
It  is  a  place  of  pride  and  finicking. 

One  spake  to  me,  '  Old  friend,  old  Planet-digger, 
This  is  a  realm  where  new  opinions  bring 
A  Faith  that  owns  no  creed,  a  State  that  scorns  a  king. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  87 

CCXXIII. 

'  For  every  man  is  king  by  his  own  right 

And  pontiff  in  religious  speculation. 
There  are  no  sins,  as  doth  the  Earth  delight : 

Each  brain  projects  its  own  illumination  : 

But  cold  is  that,  mixed  with  an  emanation 
That  smells  like  phosphorus :  sometimes  a  star 

Shines  for  us,  like  the  day  in  germination, 
With  crimson  colors  o'er  the  orient  bar, 
But  then  the  brain-lights  fail  for  many  fogs  that  are. 

CCXXIV. 

1  So  every  clique  in  its  own  brain-fog  dwells, 

And  we  have  individualised,  till  there 
Are  sounds  about  the  town  like  little  bells, 

Jangling  at  intervals  from  air  to  air, — 

To  many  gods  a  noise  of  common  prayer. 
The  brain-fogs  are  at  moments  blown  away, 

And  then  the  prophets  of  the  ilk  declare : 
Some  neigh  like  steeds  and  some  as  asses  bray : 
'To  nothingness  we  rise/  a  many  make  their  say. 

ccxxv. 

1 '  Keep  cool,  keep  cool.'     There  is  a  dread  of  heat. — 
What  know  you  of  the  properties  of  water  ? 

There  is  beyond  our  streets  a  pleasant  sheet, 

And  One  lifts  through  it  sometimes  like  the  daughter 
Of  Heaven  and  Earth ;  a  goddess  who  hath  wrought  her 

A  wondrous  mansion  deep  beyond  the  marge. 

The  Tran scendentalists  had  thought  they  caught  her; 

She  sailed  to  meet  them  in  a  pleasure  barge, 

But,  when  she  drew  anigh,  they  felt  her  breaths  discharge 


88  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCXXVI. 

'  A  warm  and  amorous  air  of  socialism, 
Till  their  pent  coldnesses  grew  sheets  of  snow, 

And  they  could  see  her  only  through  the  prism 
Of  icicles  that  hung  their  brows  below : 
But  then  she  vanished  in  a  water-glow. 

We  sped  a  speech-desire  to  Emerson, 

And  he  sent  back  the  message,  '  She  is  Show, — 

A  fictile  image, — many  thoughts  made  one, 

That  shape  before  the  eyes  a  floating  eidolon. 

CCXXVII. 

' '  Water  hath  bubbles  like  the  earth. — Now  see ! ' ' — 

The  wise  Bostonian  opened  in  the  nose, 
Then  sniffed  ;  then  said,  '  You  smell  of  poesy ; 

You  smell  of  logical  pictorial  prose ; 

Of  Brahma,  Christ,  Confucius  to  your  toes. 
You  hold  a  something  made  like  Moses'  rod. 

Great  Buddha !  what  a  reminiscence  grows ! 
One  god  you  were  and  I  another  god  : 
From  the  Olympian  hill  to  Zion's  hight  we  trod. 

CCXXVIII. 

'  These  wan  Bostonians  were  our  children  then : 

We  shook  them  from  our  bosoms  like  young  larks, 
Till  they  became  the  reasoning  souls  of  men. 

We  must  refire  their  intellectual  sparks. 

When  I  was  Parker  in  the  worldly  darks 
Boston  I  made  my  mare,  but  oft  she  shied. 

Here  I  have  found  my  Self,  and  through  the  parks 
Of  the  Eternal  Absolute  I'll  ride.'— 
A  bubble  in  his  brain  broke,  feebly  then  he  cried, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  89 

CCXXIX. 

'They  often  burst  in  me.     I  am  athirst 

In  this  cold  land  where  speculations  dwell. 
Would  God  I  were  a  babe  again  and  nursed 

Upon  my  mother's  bosom.     This  is  hell ; — 

To  break  successively  shell  after  shell, 
Yet  never  find  the  being's  ground  and  root ; 

Always  to  dream  of  an  enchanted  well, 
Shaded  'neath  bowers  that  bear  delicious  fruit ; — 
Always  to  hope  a  good,  found  not  by  the  pursuit. 

ccxxx. 

'Here  still  is  Boston.     Fantasy,  it  seems, 

Is  Nature's  stuff.     Are  you  objective?  do 
You  cognize  of  me,  or  are  we  but  dreams  ? 

Am  I  saint  Peter  ?  did  the  cock  that  crew 

To  call  him  to  repentance  rise  anew, 
Shaped  as  a  hermit  from  some  distant  wild, 

To  chide  me  that  my  thought  from  Christ  withdrew, 
And  that  the  wondrous  legend  I  defiled  ? 
My  Savior  is  myself;  'tis  not  a  Jewish  child ; 

CCXXXL 

And  I  am  saved.' — Another  bubble  broke, 

With  sound  of  waters  rushing  through  the  ear. 
From  his  right  nostril  puffed  a  breathing  smoke. 

He  caught  my  hand  and  cried,  '  Do  Gods  appear  ? 

The  Mystery  that  I  scorned  pursues  me  here. 
Was  that  a  Goddess  rising  from  the  waters  ? 

Thought  of  God's  Motherhood  I  once  held  dear  : 
My  heart  adores  that  which  my  reason  slaughters. 
Is  God  a  Woman-Man?' — 'Seek  ye  among  the  daughters.' 
vi!2 


90  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCXXXII. 

Thus  came  a  Voice,  breathed  with  the  sound  of  sighing, 

As  from  the  dryad  in  her  whispering  tree, 
Borne  till  the  wood  makes  musical  replying. 

But  then  the  daughter  stood  disguisedly, 

Led  from  the  Word's  divine  eternity, 
Like  some  cool  nymph  arisen  from  her  well : 

She  sprayed  him  from  her  hands  deliciously : 
The  love-diffusing  dews  upon  him  fell 
Till  he  stood  forth  as  one  freed  from  some  darkening  spell. 

CCXXXIII. 

He  cried,  'I  think,  I  view!'  the  bosom  rose, 

For  she  had  imminated  occultly ; 
So  he  began,  as  with  a  giant's  throes, 

To  force  himself  down  to  the  praying  knee, 

And  touch  to  God  by  thought's  reality. 
Then  he  sobbed  forth,  as  lifting  to  relief, 

'In  the  Incarnate  Miracle  I  see. 
God  in  the  Christ-Babe  bore  the  Planet's  grief. 
I  do  believe:  Lord  Christ,  help  thou  mine  unbelief!' 

NEW  BOSTON:    THOMAS  PAINE. 

'In  what  Niagaras  of  stormy  bliss 

I  think,'  spake  one  known  once  as  Thomas  Paine. 
'Stand  you  divining  wisdom  by  a  kiss, 

As  ancients  by  their  scripture  would  explain  ? 

I  was  an  infidel :  that  much  is  plain ; 
I  steeped  my  faculties  in  common  sense ; 

But  common  sense  new  senses  may  obtain, 
And  facts  that  to  it  gave  no  evidence 
May  grow  into  the  brain  by  many  a  future  tense. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  91 

ccxxxv. 

'George  Washington  was  very  good  and  kind, 

And,  though  I  scorned  upon  the  Virgin  Mary, 
After  I  left  the  Earth  sent  forth  to  find 

And  made  me  for  a  sort  of  secretary. 

For  a  milch  cow  in  his  most  private  dairy, 
If  you  will  trust  my  word  in  such  a  thing, 

A  wise  and  virtuous  woman,  blithe  and  airy, 
Makes  to  his  lips  a  milky  offering : — 
She  is  a  People's  queen,  the  general  is  king. 

CCXXXVI. 

'  111  Boston  they  began  the  Revolution, 

And  He-She, — that  is  Revolution's  Name, — 

Lives  ever  since  by  forces  in  transfusion, 

Where  the  Fire-Goddess  spins  a  robe  of  flame 
O'er  young  Columbia,  to  conceal  her  shame. 

Since  then  those  Boston  folk  for  many  years 
Keep  up  the  revolution  as  a  game : 

They  shape  by  brain-style  as  white  musketeers : 

Oft  orators  weave  swords  and  priests  are  cannoneers. 

CCXXXVII. 

'But  they  descend  by  mind  from  Ishmael: 

Against  all  creeds  and  theories  they  fight ; 
But  first  they  handle  them  and  taste  and  smell, 

Till  they  disgust  upon  their  first  delight. 

Each  of  them  is  an  Individualite, 
Who  spins  like  a  wild  kitten  round  its  tail, 

And  thinks  himself  progressive  to  the  hight 
Where  underneath  his  feet  the  stars  grow  pale. — 
So  much  of  them  : — at  last  their  evolutions  fail. 


92  STAR-FLOWERS, 

CCXXXVIIL 

'  Because  I  was  '  Tom  Paine/  some  venerate : 

As  a  small  god  in  Boston  I  have  been. 
My  'Age  of  Reason'  long  is  out  of  date : 

They  pluck  the  fruit  I  shed  when  it  was  green. 

If  the  same  apple  now  by  them  were  seen, 
Ripened  and  full  of  juice  and  rich  in  meat, 

They  would  condemn  it  to  a  quarantine ; 
Cast  it  indeed  down  an  ignoble  seat, 
And  heap  upon  it  slime,  as  I  will  not  repeat. 

CCXXXIX. 

'They  had  my  pillar  in  the  'loftier  sphere,' 
Where  '  Liberal  Thinkers '  haste  to  congregate. 

I  stood  among  the  sages  they  revere 
Until  one  day  I  found  to  imminate, 
And  through  the  stone  to  show  and  revelate. 

Ten  thousand  infidels  or  so  beheld, 

And  I  spake  to  them  words  that  had  a  weight, 

'Christ-Christa,'  said  I,  'hold, — though  we  rebelled, — 

Our  lives  in  the  Divine,  else  life  had  been  dispelled/ 

CCXL. 

'  Therefore  they  shook  my  pillar  from  its  base ; 

And  I  was  in  my  statue  when  it  fell ; 
And  they  beheld  my  pale  appealing  face 

Look  through  the  stone.     Yes,  Paine  the  infidel 

Spake  as  a  martyr  through  that  stone,  to  tell 
Of  He-She  whom  he  loves,  the  High  Oiie-Twaiii ; 

And,  when  their  blows  had  broken  up  my  shell, 
It  seemed  they  wrought  a  cross  in  their  disdain : 
They  bore  me  down  awhile,  but  I  will  not  complain. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  93 

CCXLL 

'  They  lashed  me  with  the  scourges  of  their  tongues, — 

Called  me  'a  drunken  scoundrel,  who  had  sold 
The  faith  of  reason;'  taunted  me  with  wrongs 

Beyond  what  Cheetham  libelled  me  of  old ; 

Till  women  came,  with  kindness  to  uphold, — 
Good  women,  infidels,  New  England  bred. 

But  these  I  made  disciples,  and  they  told 
That  Paine  had  given  a  sacramental  bread, 
Which  multiplied  from  Christ  while  in  His  name  they  fed. 

CCXLIL 

'  So  in  this  land,  that  now  is  named  <  Gradation/ 

I  dwell  and  keep  a  caravansary, 
Only  for  infidels.     'Tis  my  vocation, 

As  they  emerge  from  death's  deep  mystery, 

To  make  them  welcome  at  <  Paine's  Hostelry,' 
And  of  my  own  experience  to  show. 

In  a  small  way  I  serve  as  Peter's  key, 
Opening  the  doors  of  Heaven  by  truth  aglow, 
And  many  have  gone  in :  yea,  some  of  them  you  know. ' 

MYSTERY    OF    EVIL:     THE    LOST    ORB. 

What  Power  is  this  found  in  the  dark  of  death? 

No  other  planet  in  Life's  universe 
Chills  for  the  cold  of  the  dissolving  breath ; 

None  other  floats,  made  all  a  tear-stained  hearse, 

Wrapt  in  demoniac  shades  that  stain  and  curse  : 
None  other  whirls  through  miseries  apart, 

From  Heaven's  fraternal  order  made  inverse. 
None  other  bears  a  woe  as  where  thou  art : 
What  poison  twines  thy  veins !  what  ruin  rules  thy  heart ! 


94  STAR-BLOWERS. 

CCXLIV. 

I  see  thee,  yet  not  seeing :  thou  art  not, 

And  still  thou  art ; — a  shape  that  hath  no  soul ; 
A  generator  of  all  evils,  fraught 

With  misery  and  madness  to  control. 

Once  a  gigantic  mind  in  self  did  scroll 
His  being  and  through  him  his  people  fell. 

As  discords,  when  their  surging  volumes  roll, 
Shatter  at  last  some  vibrant  crystal  bell, 
The  anarchim  destroyed  the  orb  that  did  rebel. 

CCXLV. 

Oblivion  since  hath  passed  upon  the  race 

Of  the  destroyers,  but  their  magic  set 
An  image  in  Earth's  Nature  so  to  trace, 

And  in  that  image,  though  the  years  forget, 

All  the  insanities  that  highten  yet 
Shape  for  a  false  ideal :  they  array 

In  man  their  sexual  fashion  to  beget  : 
They  weave  anew,  through  Nature's  endless  play. 
From  outlines  of  the  fall  Nature  repeats  alway. 

CCXLVI. 

Nature  contains  a  falseness  not  her  own : 

'Tis  in  the  third  exterior  degree ; 
Wrought  mainly  through  the  superficial  zone 

Where  Earth's  young  manhood  sought  humanity. 

From  this  ensues  the  world's  profanity : 
The  primal  curse  flows  on  through  many  less 

To  thrall  the  race  in  nature-slavery ; 
Man  to  make  devil,  woman  deviless, 
Tainting  with  varying  plagues  their  social,  sexual  dress. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  95 

CCXLVII. 

Thence  comes  the  legend  of  a  ruling  fiend ; 

Stories  of  angels  from  their  glory  lost. — 
No  race  is  from  its  superstitions  weaned 

That  worships  the  false  god :  though  myths  exhaust, 

The  false  god's  tracery  in  Nature's  frost 
Weaves  for  new  phantoms  through  the  racial  plan : 

The  evil  seer  who  hath  her  outline  crossed 
Draws  by  the  brain-whirl  to  the  Fallen  Man ; — 
The  image  in  her  disc  whence  the  decline  began. 

CCXLVIIL 

This  Image,  with  a  brow  of  frosted  steel, 
Confronts  me :  it  is  nought  and  yet  is  more 

Than  hosts  who  in  the  storm  of  battle  wheel. 
My  quivering  shade-form  seems  to  stand  before 
A  mighty  force  of  phantasm  fiercely  frore ; 

An  Abstract  Intellect  whose  life  is  dead ; 

Whose  hollow  form  with  Nature-life  brims  o'er 

To  scorn  the  High  One-Twain's  pure  Goddesshead ; — 

A  centralised  Self-Lust,  by  the  orb's  vigors  fed. 

CCXLIX. 

'Tis  Thought  that  rules  the  Earth  when  organised. 

Here  is  a  Thought  shaped  in  Earth's  third  dimension, 
That  wrought  through  ages  all  disparadised, 

By  all  heredities  led  to  extension. 

The  'god  of  this  world'  is  no  fond  invention, — 
The  'god  of  this  world'  who  gave  Christ  no  place. 

Here  was  the  power  that  made  His  intervention 
A  martyrdom  and  crowned  it  with  disgrace. 
This  power  in  man  resists  the  Bridal  Word's  embrace, 


96  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCL. 

Men  who  strive  most  for  God  and  for  mankind 
Find  in  all  times  this  Vastness  without  name : 

Through  paths  of  all  the  mysteries  they  wind ; 
All  ills  they  conquer  and  all  fears  out-flame, 
Till  Nature,  in  the  last  turn  of  her  game, 

Shows  the  False  Cross,  the  dread  Man-Serpent's  rod ; — 
The  might  the  orb's  one-twaining  that  o'ercame ; — 

Might  that  led  forth  the  sex-lust  where  it  trod 

And  closed'  the  racial  lungs  against  the  breath  of  God. 

CCLI. 

This  Image,  'tis  in  Nature,  and  its  place 
The  plexial  wreath  of  her  vast  loveliness ; 

Suppressing  there  the  form  she  might  entrace. — 
Words,  they  are  vain  the  mystery  to  express. — 
Yet  Issa  spake,  l  Do  thou  in  me  confess.' 

She  rose  upon  me ;  all  her  mights  in  tower ; 
Then  stripped  her  bosom  of  the  extreme  dress, 

Saying,  '  In  me  trace  Nature's  dormant  flower ; 

The  devil's  paw  smote  there  on  Nature  in  her  bower. 

CCLII. 

'  See !  here  my  rod  flames  forth  mysterious,  showing 

A  flower  with  lights  that  burn  and  socialise. — 
This  passion-flower,  the  deathless  one,  bestowing 

Forces 'whereby  the  godlike  ones  arise, 

Shaping  the  Earth  to  immortalities, — 
This  flower  Earth's  Nature  holdeth  but  in  germ : 

Her  littleness  alone  through  woman  plies, 
For  the  resistant  image  of  the  worm    . 
Is  stamped  into  her  there  to  conquer  and  unfirm. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  97 

CCLIII. 

'  Now  thou  hast  entered  Nature  from  on  high, 
To  scan  the  wounding  that  she  would  not  show 

Whilst  thou  wert  moving  in  her  mystery. 
'Twas  this  made  Nature  colden  to  thee  so  : 
Woman  is  she,  and  woman  hides  her  woe. 

This  is  her  shame ;  the  shame  of  shames  indeed. 
All  the  lost  girls,  of  whom  by  thought  you  know, 

Fall  in  this  shame  and  in  it  sin  and  bleed : 

Here  is  the  devil's  book  by  which  men's  lusts  do  read/ 

CCLIV. 

She  flamed  upon  me,  pale  and  terrible. 

1  Faithful/  she  spake,  'Look  here!  our  Father  bled 
Less  on  the  cross  than  in  the  violet  dell 

Where  woman  holds  her  plexial  bridalhead. 

Yea,  here  thou  bleedest,  till  thy  life  is  shed 
By  day  and  night  and  the  worn  shadow  fails. 

Man  hath  the  God- Word  misinterpreted : 
The  word-seed  on  the  nature-worm  impales, 
For  Nature  in  her  breast  the  sexual  death  envails.' 

CCLV. 

I  cried,  "Yea,  it  is  so ;  but  can  a  worm 

Arrest  the  equinox?"  She  murmured,  'Yes. 

When  I  do  wing  me  there  in  Nature's  form 
Thou  shalt  find  Issa  in  this  lady's  pless, 
Rising  through  that  lost  organ  for  redress 

Of  many  ills  that  nature-girl  hath  made. 
Then  woman  unto  woman  will  confess, 

As  sister-buds  in  God's  White  Flower  displayed, 

And  the  Great  Sex  uplift,  for  unity  arrayed/ 
vi!3 


98  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCLVI. 

It  was  a  Voice,  '  Shall  Nature's  frame  ungird  ? ' 
Far  sounding  through  the  caverns  of  the  Night. 

A  sense  within  the  senses  rose  and  heard. 
I  stood  in  speechless  wonder  and  delight, 
For  the  Form  Spirits  by  their  will  gave  might. 

Then  Issa  spake  again,  '  Behold,  I  go ; 

And  thou  shalt  enter  with  me  where  the  blight 

Spins  upon  Nature's  breast  to  spoil  her  so : 

Then  we,  one-twain,  will  pass  to  serve  by  bliss-in-woe.' 

7. 

PENETRATIONS. 

He  who  has  found  the  old  of  old, 
And  wrought  therein  for  blisses  bold, 
May  penetrate  beyond  the  mold, 
Where  erst  the  streams  of  Eden  rolled. 

He  who  has  met  the  curse  of  curse, 
And  aye  with  better  faced  the  worse, 
May  win  at  last  the  Fates,  who  nurse 
Young  Edens  for  the  universe. 

He  who  has  borne  the  toil  of  toil 
May  so  enrich  by  spoil  of  spoil ; 
From  man  the  death-worm  to  uncoil, 
And  end  the  Planet's  long  turmoil. 

He  who  has  found  the  central  power 
That  holds  from  bloom  the  woman's  flower, 
Upon  his  breasts  may  build  her  tower ; 
Then  lead  her  to  God's  marriage  bower. 


S^AR-tfLOWERS.  99 

I  wreathe  my  life  in  Issa's  bloom : 
With  her  I  dare  the  Nature-doom. 
Our  cross  shall  blossom  in  the  tomb, 
Till  bridal  beams  the  dark  illume. 

The  sad  sweet  story  here  has  caught 
Warm  splendors  in  the  Savior-thought : 
In  loftier  powers  it  wings  enwrought, 
Victorious  where  the  Serpent  fought. 


BATTLE    THROUGH    INFANCY. 

'A  worm  may  overcome  the  equinox;' 

A  wreathing  form  of  passionate  desire 
Resist  the  tempest  that  the  planet  shocks, 

And  charm  to  death  its  discords  by  the  lyre, 

Impulsing  melodies  that  weave  to  fire. 
Leap  thou,  my  quivering  heart,  leap  thou  to  song. 

Thou  shade-form,  though  but  for  the  funeral  pyre, 
Light  thy  last  powers  serenely  brave  and  strong : 
Strike  to  Earth's  plexial  bands  till  she  the  strain  prolong. 

CCLVIII. 

I  held  a  girl  babe,  seated  on  my  knee. 

It  had  survived  the  nature-tie,  but  here 
A  grandchild  came,  and  God's  Paternity 

Broke  through  my  being ;  so  I  claimed  her  dear. 

But  Nature  through  the  infant  thrust  her  spear  : 
He  who  would  lift  one  child  from  Nature's  thrall 

Must  stand  where  every  cradle  vails  a  bier, 
And  meet  the  false  god  of  the  planet,  all 
Found  in  that  central  sign  lifted  for  woman's  fall. 


100 


CCLIX; 


From  this  small  word-babe  through  my  being  rolled 

A  wave  of  ecstasies  in  agonies. 
I  seemed  to  her  a  grandsire  grey  and  old  ; 

I,  youthful  in  the  prime  of  paradise. 

I  scriptured  her  ;  so  heard  through  her  the  cries 
Of  suffering  word-babes  all  the  planet  o'er  ; 

Then,  clasping  to  my  heart  the  infant  prize, 
My  hope,  my  expectation  rose  ;  it  bore 
Earth's  infancy  aloft  through  God  for  garden-door. 

CCLX. 

Such  wealth  of  generous  being  flows  and  floods 

In  this  one-twainness  that  no  grief  appals  : 
We  are  as  wealthy  as  the  summer  woods, 

Gay  for  a  clime  where  God  holds  festivals  ; 

Where  from  each  tree  the  heart-sweet  dryad  calls, 
And  every  fountain  vails  a  nymph  divine. 

The  Mother-sea  flows  through  for  crystal  walls  ; 
Her  diamond  grottos  in  the  waters  shine, 
And,  if  the  eyes  find  tears,  the  tears  make  joyous  wine. 

CCLXI. 

So,  touching  to  the  word-babe,  Mother's  gift, 

Issa  upon  my  heart  wrought  overflow 
And  woman's  tenderness  rose  strong  to  lift, 

Yet  wove  a  sheaf  of  waters  in  her  bow. 

Then  compassed  she,  a  greatness  to  bestow  : 
She  led  me  through  the  gradual  states  of  man, 

To  where  the  intellectual  state  below 
Holds  in  its  learning  strife  and  scorn  and  ban  ; 
Where  thought's  intensest  powers  New  England's  culture 
span. 


101 


CCLXII. 


The  Mother  blessed  me  by  Her  violet,  \] 

Wreathed  as  a  heaven  encompassing/t'he^  sight  ^o,,   »3  J 
Infinitudes  of  liquid  azure,  set 

In  starry  orbs  of  emanative  light. — 

My  songs  for  earthly  utterance  unite, 
Shaped  from  the  star-words,  shaped  as  infants  all, 

That  through  the  breathing  bosom  wing  their  flight. 
The  choral  infants  in  my  voice  give  call : 
They  pass  by  living  clouds  dim  Earth's  enclosing  wall. 

CCLXIIL 

Earth  is  a  fallen  world,  lost  from  the  motion 

Whereby  the  sister  planets  round  and  swim ; 
Orbed  in  illusions  for  an  airy  ocean ; 

Closed  from  the  Word-breath  into  falsehoods  grim ; 

Closed  by  long  evils  to  the  choric  hymn. 
Of  universal  harmony ;  self-lost ; 

Its  Peoples  but  as  whirling  motes  that  dim 
In  self-begotten  vapors  to  exhaust ; 
Its  life-line  girdled  round  by  life-consuming  frost. 

CCLXIV. 

'  'Tis  a  mad  world,  my  masters ! ' — everywhere 

The  brute  peers  forth  through  seeming  manhood's  face. 

The  beast  shapes  in  the  human  breast  his  lair. 
If  Christ  were  man, — and  more  he  was  by  grace 
Of  full  one-twainness  in  divine  embrace, — 

Then  the  best  show  but  sketches  of  design, 
There,  where  the  highest,  good  is  out  of  place, 

Where  anarchies  with  slaveries  entwine 

Insanities  in  man,  o'erdarkening  the  divine. 


102 


CCLXV. 

'frbai^rtie  view-point  of  that  one  small  globe, 
e  is  JIG*  hope  *of  any  better  life  : 
^or'mis'eries  i'he  growing  years  enrobe, 

Whilst  progress  fashions  more  and  complex  strife. 
Nation  defends  from  nation  by  the  knife. 
Though  culture  gilds  and  spangles  on  the  brow, 

The  People's  body  is  with  ulcers  rife  : 
Passions  that  all  men  feel,  though  few  avow, 
Corrupt  where  they  repress,  corrode  where  they  o'erflow. 

CCLXVI. 

In  that  dread  Tophet  of  the  generations 

Show  island  points  of  freedom,  truth  and  art. 
Hope  lights  mankind  from  their  illuminations 

And  Commerce  plies  for  her  debauching  part  ; 

Or  crowned  embattled  Murder  thrones  the  mart  ; 
Or  Luxury  fires  the  passions  to  a  storm  ; 

Or  Superstition  slaves  the  mind  inert. 
The  multiplying  ills  debase,  deform. 
Man  glides  erect  in  part,  then  grovels  like  the  worm. 

CCLXVII. 

Men  seek  to  ope  the  occult  world,  but  thence, 

As  from  the  casket  on  Pandora's  knee, 
Concealed  illusions  rise  to  eminence  : 

The  race  explores  its  own  insanity  : 

It  penetrates  the  Word-bound  terror-sea 
Whence  superstitions  breed  and  manias  hive  : 

It  opens  to  a  realm  of  witchery 
Whence  all  the  ills  that  spell  the  nations  drive  ; 
Opes  to  the  lusts  that  burn,  the  anarchies  that  rive. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  103 

CCLXVIIL 

When  the  live  electricities  are  found, 

When  the  formed  magnetisms  shall  unearth, 
Then  on  man's  couch  may  leap  the  electric  hound, 

Or  the  magnetic  wolf  haunt  by  the  hearth. 

There  is  an  occult  world  in  under-birth, — 
Creatures  like  those  in  prehistoric  seas, 

Serving,  perchance,  an  end  in  Nature's  mirth, 
Yet  leading  heats  that  scorch  and  colds  that  freeze, 
And  withering  this  mankind  by  lightnings  from  their  glees. 

LIVING     LIGHTNINGS. 

The  orbed  Earth  is  vital  to  her  core ; 

Electro-vital  oceans  in  her  thrill : 
The  narrow  rim  man  treads  or  couches  o'er 

Electric  powers  may  open :  sure  they  will. 

Science  projects  by  forces  that  instil : 
JTis  the  Aladdin  who  with  lamp  in  hand 

Summons  the  genii  that  have  slumbered  still, 
Enchanted  all  in  Nature's  occult  land ; 
But  Science  has  no  spell  to  rule  that  awful  band. 

CCLXX. 

Men  are  as  motes,  as  insects  of  the  ray, 

Measured  by  those  impersonals,  who  own 
Allegiance  only  to  a  loftier  sway: 

The  Woman's  Word  is  their  desire  alone. 

Within  Her  by  her  harmonies  they  tone ; 
Unto  Her  breath  they  draw  for  their  delights, 

And  She  enweaves,  with  many  a  splendid  zone, 
The  vital  realm  made  glorious  by  their  mights. 
But  now  the  Lightnings  rise ;  the  song  their  power  invites, 


104  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCLXXI. 

That  realm  is  wakening  even  now ;  the  probe 

Of  science,  piercing  the  electric  floors, 
Thrills  them  as  if  the  lungs  in  either  lobe 

Felt  the  swift  blow  or  the  sharp  horn  that  gores. 

The  electricities  have  opened  doors : 
Touch  men  upon  the  last,  then,  sure  as  fate, 

Embodied  lightnings  reach  the  earthly  shores, 
Harmless  and  kind,  impervious  to  hate, 
Yet  kindling  in  the  airs  Earth's  race  to  uncreate. 

ccLxxri. 

Science  to  the  white  magic  is  akin : 

Yet  why  was  magic  long  ago  forbid  ? 
Wise  ancients  knew,  but  would  not  enter  in : 

All  that  was  safe  to  do  they  dared  and  did. 

The  Morning  Land  held  lights  beneath  its  lid : 
They  show  sublimely  here  in  Lilistan ; 

But  men  whose  lore  sleeps  'neath  the  pyramid 
Knew  that  electric  oceans,  vast  and  wan, 
Hold  races  whom  to  rouse  were  to  extinguish  man ; — 

CCLXXIIL 

Not  angels  and  not  devils ;  creatures  wrought 

In  prior  substance  ;  beings  many-styled, 
Unknowable  by  Earth's  dirnensive  thought. — 

Lord  Jesus  traveled  'mid  them  when  a  Child ; 

On  His  arch-solar  face  they  beamed  and  smiled, 
Whilst  He  restrained  them  from  their  warlike  mood, 

Made  to  a  longer  quiet  reconciled ; 
For  He  baptised  them  in  His  Yessa's  good  : 
His  glowing  feet  that  passed  calmed  their  electric  flood, 


STAR-FLOWERS.  105 

CCLXXIV. 

Yet  He  eneharmed  them  only  till  mankind 
Should  touch  into  their  energies  : — they  feel  : 

The  circle  of  their  quiet  is  untwined  : 

The  growing  cyclones  in  their  breathings  wheel, 
And  the  Earth  jars  upon  them,  till  they  peel 

The  fiery  garments  from  their  snow-white  limbs, 
And  listen,  listen  to  the  thoughts  that  steal. 

Drop  after  drop  Earth's  cataract  of  sins 

Tingles  into  their  sense  and  there  its  meaning  wins. 

CCLXXV. 

Mankind  is  living  in  a  proud  defiance 

Of  what  good  thinkers  feel  to  be  God's  Right. 
Faiths  and  unfaiths  both  nurture  a  reliance 

On  self-desire,  self-service  and  delight. 

Insanities,  that  in  their  breasts  unite, 
Lead  them  through  life  as  reckless  buccaneers. 

The  few  who  hold  to  God  by  secret  plight, 
In  whose  deep  hearts  the  violet  heaven  anears, 

Are  whirled  amid  the  storm,  impaled  upon  the  spears. 

i 

CCLXXVI. 

Men  say,  'As  science  traces,  God  recedes 

And  vails  in  the  unknowable  at  last.' 
The  scientist  his  nature-scripture  reads 

Till  to  his  thought  the  word-stars  are  downcast, 

To  melt  in  vapors  of  the  foolish  Past. 
Gods  seem  projected  phantoms  of  the  brain, 

And  Heavens,  their  splendors  on  the  soul  that  cast, 
But  fire-mists  woven  by  the  floating  train 
Of  the  fantastic  dreams,  empty  and  fond  and  vain. 
vi!4 


106  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCLXXVII. 

Now  comes  at  last  the  Man  on  the  white  horse  : 

Now  draws  anigh  the  Woman  of  the  wave. 
Yea,  but  for  Them  the  planet  were  a  corse, 

Its  airs  a  winding-sheet,  its  dust  a  grave. 

Thou  Saviorhood,  Thy  name  is  Strong-to-save, 
But  science  urges  doom ;  it  forces  open 

The  doors  whereby  the  deaths  their  pathway  pave : 
Wellnigh  it  hath  the  orb's  shekinah  broken : 
Deep  in  the  ears  of  doom  its  boastful  words  are  spoken. 

CCLXXVIII. 

Men  seek  the  risen  truths  in  broken  shells ; 

Yet  on  mine  eyes  the  star-bright  nereids  lean, 
Uplifting  from  the  Mother's  violet  wells, 

Each  in  the  glory  of  Her  Word  serene  ; 

Clad  all  in  splendors  of  the  Bridal  Queen ; 
Sprinkling  for  dews  of  silence  and  repose ; 

Charming  the  world  to  quiet  rest  between 
The  folded  arms  that  for  her  slumber  close, 
Whilst  music  that  is  love  from  every  fountain  flows. 

DIVINE     NIGHT. 

Thou  NIGHT,  the  Beautiful !  whom  I  adore ; 

Thou  Goddess  Night  whom  Dayaus  folds  for  bride ; 
Thou  who  dost  beam,  with  star-flowers  mantled  o'er, 

Through  myriad  heavens  and  earths  for  bliss  to  glide ; 

Divine,  all  wonderful,  whose  mystery  plied 
In  the  weird  numbers  of  this  solemn  lay, 

In  Thy  Divinity  let  me  abide  : 
Open  this  breast  anew  for  breathing  play : 
Instil  for  loftier  powers  that  in  Thy  gifts  array. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  107 

CCLXXX. 

Thou  Night,  the  All-Embraciiig,  Pitiful, 

Who  touchest  even  the  worm  for  tenderness, 
I  lift  from  the  lone  planet,  dark  and  dull, 

Bathing  my  life  in  Thee,  the  Sorrowless. 

I  fill  of  Thee,  my  shade  to  dispossess 
Of  care  and  age  and  frailness ;  so  to  shed 

The  exquisite  benignities  that  press 
From  the  fruitions  of  Thy  Goddesshead, 
And  sprinkle  for  delights  this  earth  I  make  my  bed. 

CCLXXXI. 

Weave  slumberous  arms  through  mine  embracingly ; 

Weave  charm s-in-charms,  delicious,  warm  as  flowers 
That  open  for  the  summer's  ecstasy : 

Kevive,  renew,  remultiply  the  powers. 

I  hunger  for  Thy  gifts,  as  for  the  bowers 
Of  immortality  the  faint  fair  girl. 

Lead  me  to  rise  above  Morn's  orient  towers, 
Where  fiery  breaths  find  voice  and  winds  shape  whirl : 
Thy  purities  through  all  this  visioned  life  impearl. 

CCLXXXII. 

For  now  Thy  violet  is  o'er  mine  eyes, 

Where  sun-fires  of  the  day  so  long  have  darted, 
And  thought  forms  newly  to  the  woman's  ways, 

And  Earth  is  but  a  dream  of  things  departed. 

And  all  my  being  grows  by  wisdom  hearted, 
Impenetrate  from  love  in  overflow. 

The  griefs  that  in  Earth's  infancy  have  smarted, 
Charmed  with  Thy  mother-joy,  lead  bliss-in-woe. 
I  strive  to  reach  my  goal  in  Nature's  bosom  so. 


108  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCLXXXIII. 

Make  Thou  thy  touch  in  mine  more  delicate, 

More  fine  and  firm  than  the  arch-solar  kiss 
On  virgin  planets,  leading  through  the  gate 

Of  their  young  edens  for  the  birth  of  bliss 

In  new  humanities  :  fold  thine  abyss 
Of  darkness  round  me,  closing  utterly, 

That  I  may  serve  thy  full  desire  in  this. 
Thy  feet  I  touched  before,  but  now  the  knee. 
The  spell  thy  bosom  hides  forms  in  my  verse  to  be. 

CCLXXXIV. 

So  let  me  dare  unto  the  last  extent. 

From  Woman  came  I  forth,  to  her  I  yield, 
Drawn  by  desire  into  the  last  event, 

All  in  the  doing  of  thy  will  concealed. 

Be  Thou,  0  Night !  my  panoply  and  shield : 
The  gated  electricities  unbar  : 

Hold  me,  that  I  may  cross  the  stormy  field 
Where  the  dread  astral  powers  for  terrors  are. 
Hold  me  within  thy  shade,  as  darkness  vails  the  star 

FOSSILISED     PHILOSOPHY. 

The  cold  Philosopher  who  thinks  in  stone', 

And  from  the  surface  builds  a  reasoning  pyre, 
Lives  not  in  man ;  he  'habits  but  the  bone : 

Nature's  chill  minerals  are  his  mind's  attire. 

Felt  by  the  one-twain  minstrel's  touch  of  fire, 
The  cold  reptilia  fossil  in  his  brain  : 

When  to  the  caves  of  sleep  his  thoughts  retire, 
They  make  no  home  in  human  joy  or  pain : 
The  solitary  sprites  a  social  life  disdain. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  109 

CCLXXXVL 

He  lives  on  man,  not  in  man :  he  absorbs 

Vigors  that  grow  from  man's  warmheartedness, 
And  so  his  frigid  skeleton  enorbs, 

Making  his  glacial  self  a  wilderness, 

Arrayed  in  Time's  historic  loveliness  : 
His  the  cold  eye  that  telescopes  the  stars  : 

His  the  cold  hand  on  Nature's  globes  to  press, 
To  vivisect  through  pains  and  wounds  and  scars, 
To  pierce  the  hidden  life,  to  break  its  sheltering  bars. 

CCLXXXVIL 

His  the  cold  mind,  from  quivering  human  life, 

Outraged  but  vailed  beneath  his  glance,  to  scan 
Of  the  Divinity's  creation,  rife 

With  sightless  wonders,  and  misread  the  plan  : 

He  finds  an  agony  and  names  it  'man.' 
He  traces  where  the  people  of  the  heart 

Built  from  warm  raptures,  greek  or  aryan ; 
Explores  the  ruined  shrine,  the  wasted  mart ; — 
Reads  men  as  building  ants,  phantoms  of  Nature's  art. 

CCLXXXVIIL 

The  godlike  images,  wherein  they  set 

Symbols  of  mind  that  met  Divinity, 
In  his  cold  brain  no  loftier  thoughts  beget 

Than  fashion  from  its  mineralogy. 

The  love,  the  worship  and  the  poesy 
Are  but  as  pebbles  from  some  old  moraine. 

He  builds  from  Time  his  glacial  theory : 
The  prophet's  ecstasy,  the  bardic  strain, 
For  him  are  but  as  drops  of  prehistoric  rain. 


110  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCLXXXIX. 

For  that  his  reasoning  sight  but  meets  illusion, 

He  reasons  that  illusion  was  the  base, 
Whence  great  Religions  drew  for  the  profusion 

Of  Idealities  that  wrought  their  grace 

And  glory  for  each  old-time  vanished  race. 
Because  the  sun  to  him  is  but  a  mass 

Of  fire-mist  nucleating  from  the  space, 
He  sees  not  that  the  Morn  once  held  a  glass, 
Within  whose  mirrored  orb  God  might  to  vision  pass. 

CCXC. 

The  mineral  thought  finds  but  the  mineral 

Where  the  Star-Spirits  light  their  burnished  thrones 
The  heavens  to  him  are  but  the  massive  wall 

Where  stone-work  heaps,  to  grow  perchance  to  bones. 

Language  to  him,  with  all  its  glorious  tones, 
Vibrant  from  fiery-hearted  bards  of  old, 

Is  but  a  lifeless  sea  that  heaves  and  moans 
From  caverns  of  the  preexistent  cold. 
Upon  his  plexial  orb  the  fossil  is  enscrolled. 

CCXCI. 

What  if  God  Dayaus  merely  was  the  sun  ? 

The  sun  was  Being  to  that  orient  nation 
Who  stood  in  worship,  glad  for  morn  begun, 

Feeling  the  plexus  lift  for  exultation. 

The  Father  Sun  they  owned  by  adoration. 
Did  the  enkindling  raptures  through  them  run  ? 

Their  minds  illumined  to  a  coronation ; 
Brother  felt  brother  from  the  Father-One ; 
Anthropomorphic  faith  in  light  its  vesture  spun. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  Ill 

CCXCIL 

Were  men  not  fossilised,  not  made  as  heaps 

Massed  on  each  other  in  some  ruined  wall, 
This  fiery  faith  that  from  the  morning  leaps 

Would  cleave  once  more  the  dead  world's  frozen  pall, 

And  lift  again,  to  show,  for  solar  ball 
God  Helios-Christus,  Lord  of  light  and  song : 

Winds  might  bear  melodies ;  Apollo's  call 
Wake  sweet  response  the  plexial  lyres  among, 
And  age  renew  its  youth,  by  Him,  the  Ever- Young. 

CCXCIII. 

The  Age  is  like  an  old  man  in  his  dotage, 

Who  hath  outlived  the  fire  that  fed  his  veins, 

And  feebly  struggles  for  his  mess  of  pottage, 
And  thinks  but  from  the  coldness  in  his  reins, 
Though  once  he  rode  with  Morning  o'er  the  plains 

And  wooed  blithe  Immortality  for  bride. 

Therefore  the  Earth  spurns  on  him  with  disdains : 

Therefore  the  Heaven, — yea,  She,  the  violet-eyed, — 

With  pity  brims  Her  cup,  ere  he  to  ruin  tide. 


ISSA:     SUN-SONG. 

'  I  am  the  Sun-God's  glorious  daughter : 

I  smile  o'er  the  billows  wan ; 
O'er  plains  that  are  red  from  the  human  slaughter ; 

O'er  ruins  and  wraiths  of  man. 

'  I  touch  to  the  veins  of  the  weary  planet ; 

I  touch  for  the  fires  that  thrill : 
The  Bridal  Word  that  for  joy  began  it 

Is  flooding  its  race  to  fill, 


112  STAR-FLOWERS. 

'  Cold  are  the  tears  in  its  orbs  that  glisten  ; 

Strained  are  its  bosom's  chords. 
They  from  the  solar  world  who  listen 

Hear  but  the  strife  of  swords  ; 

'  Hear  but  the  war-cries  of  the  factions, — 
Brother  'gainst  brother  met ; 

Lost  to  the  social  interactions ; 
Dead  to  the  violet ; 

'  Kissed  where  the  rising  deaths  en-anger ; 

Kissed  till  the  loves  decay. 
Only  as  shadows  now  they  linger, — 

Shadows  in  stormful  play. 

<  I  am  the  Sun-God's  glorious  maiden. 

List  to  the  words  I  say : 
Death  I  pursue,  with  the  planet  laden  ; 

Death  I  o'ertake  and  slay.' 

9. 

THE     HUMAN     PROPHECY. 

All  that  a  man  hath  he  will  give 
For  Life,  that  is  so  fugitive ; 
.  And  yet  he  reaps  but  frozen  pains 
For  harvest  in  his  aged  veins. 

All  that  a  man  hath  he  will  spend 
For  Love,  with  solace  to  attend ; 
Yet  she  but  withers  on  his  breast 
And  leaves  a  vision  of  unrest. 

All  that  man  knoweth  he  will  cast 
Behind  him,  and  deny  the  Past 


STAR-FLOWERS.  113 

For  the  bright  Future,  that  recedes, 
Lengthening  the  path  whereon  he  bleeds. 

Yet  Life,  still  Life ;  not  less  but  more 
He  claims,  he  craves ;  her  floods  unshore. 
Striving  for  the  diviner  sea, 
He  reaches  from  his  agony. 

The  Solar  God  his  passion  nurst, 
A^hen  first  the  morn  made  life  to  burst 
And  quicken  through  his  tiny  shell, 
Warm  in  the  mother's  blossom-bell. 

There  is  a  prophecy  in  him. 
Though  Time  through  lingering  years  bedim ; 
Though  Earth  encold  from  branch  to  root, 
The  prophecy  will  not  be  mute. 

It  streams  from  all  the  zodiac's  urns ; 
It  floods  from  spheres  where  noon-tide  burns ; 
It  breathes,  though  years  like  stars  have  set, 
From  Life's  immortal  violet ; 

The  prophecy  of  endless  hours, 
Wreathed  all  with  Love's  undying  flowers ; 
The  prophecy  of  God  in  man, — 
Young  Earth  reborn  as  Lilistan. 

10. 
GRADATION:    CHAPIN. 

Chapin  the  Universalist 
Glanced  through  a  cool  Bostonian  mist ; 
A  man  of  learning,  worth  and  sense, 
Half  caution  and  half  eloquence ; 
Changed  much  from  his  anterior  style. — 
vi  15 


114  STAR-FLOWERS. 

'  Posterior/  he  exclaimed :  a  smile 
Broke  through  his  eyes,  he  stood  awhile, 
Till  his  formed  thought  an  outline  won  : 
So  to  mine  eyes  a  vision  spun. — 

What?  Rabbi  Chapin?— for  he  drew 

To  the  round  likeness  of  a  Jew  : 

Chapin-Spinosa  he  was  now, — 

Domed  brain  and  corrugated  brow, — 

Taking  the  aspect  of  the  man, 

The  mighty  scholar-artisan. 

Spake  Chapin,  '  Do  you  memory  when 

I  thought  among  the  Boston  men  ? 

Spinosa  was  the  secret  power 

Wrought  in  New  England's  mental  flower. 

The  Unitarian  touched  the  Jew : 

His  was  the  charm  that  Alcott  drew ; 

The  subtle  vein  that  wove  and  spun 

For  brilliancy  in  Emerson.' 

I  answered,  "Well?"  His  aspect  grew 
Spinosa,  Charming  and  Ballou ; 
Then,  with  a  twinkle  in  the  eye, 
Looked  for  a  sentence  in  reply. 
"Chapin,"  I  spake,  "as  he  was  then; 
A  man  made  up  from  three  strong  men : 
He  read  as  poets  who  divine ; 
He  preached,  but  not  as  parsons  whine  : 
Warm-hearted  student ;  all  a  wit ; 
Concealing  but  no  hypocrite ; 
His  was  a  power,  had  he  but  known, 
To  blossom  from  God's  rose  full-blown, 
In  fragrance  that  might  thence  have  led 
Blessing  as  from  God's  bridal  bed." 


STAR-FLOWERS.  115 

He  quivered,  gasped,  his  belly  smote, 

Then  spake,  'I  fed  like  any  shoat : 

I  had  a  belly-god,  a  fellow 

Who  when  I  dined  grew  warm  and  mellow ; 

An  adjunct,  verily  a  ghost, 

Who  took  me  for  his  boiled  and  roast ; 

Then  thought,  in  odious  mimicry, 

That  he  was  Chapin,  I  but  he. 

Sometimes  I  sensed,  though  never  said, 

Something  uncanny  haunt  my  bed. 

Sometimes  I  feared,  in  spite  of  Paul, 

Blue  smoke  and  sulphur  after  all. 

I  held  my  cult  as  men  persist 

Who  see  the  home-lights  through  a  mist, 

And  grope  their  way,  'mid  wind  and  rain, 

To  reach  the  household  roof  again. 

I  dared  not  trust  my  deeper  moods : 

I  feared  the  visioned  solitudes. — 


t  The  bubble,  Earth,  broke  : — then  'twas  so 

That  back  to  Boston  I  must  go. 

The  Jewish-Unitarian  whirl 

Closed  round,  my  being  to  infurl. 

My  books  revived  upon  the  brain ; 

But  now  by  whirlwinds  of  a  pain. 

Spofford,  and  others  such  as  he, 

Wrought  magic  of  the  library. 

I  owned  the  books ; — now  books  owned  me : 

The  romance  and  the  poetry 

Had  lost  their  charm,  but  thence  I  fed 

On  curious  tracings  of  the  dead ; 

Not  reading  what  men  thought  they  said. 


116  STAR-FLOWERS; 

1  Books  are  the  grave-yards  of  the  wit ; 
Some  open  like  a  charnel  pit. 
Byron  wrote  often  from  the  zest 
Of  suicide  within  his  breast ; 
Burns  sometimes  as  a  sacred  bard, 
Whose  purities  make  one  discard 
Much  that  in  Hebrew  lore  we  find ; — 
An  angel  in  a  goat  entwined. 
Chapin, — ah  well ! ' 

I  caught  his  hand ; 

" Brother/'  I  cried,  "thy  thoughts  enwand; 
Think  not  of  the  departed  land." 
'Yes,  it  is  good  of  you/  he  spoke, 
'The  mind  from  memories  to  evoke. 
Now  I  am  happy  ;  books  are  fled  : 
Realities  enthrone  instead. 
Had  I  but  dared/— 

"Nay,  harping  still! 

Come  back,  come  home  from  Murray  hill. 
I  was  before  you:  give  to  me 
Brown  stone  'Divine  Paternity.' ' 
He  smiled,  '  Right  gladly ;  that  I  will ; 
Some  hearts  dream  there  toward  you  still. 
There  lives  a  flower  that  you  left ; 
Something  from  the  peeled  rods  you  cleft. 
Your  works  endure,  while  Chapin's  close ; 
Yours  the  young  lambs,  though  mine  the  ewes.' 

"Brother,"  I  said,  "though  years  betide, 
The  lover  loves  the  vanished  bride. 
My  feet  are  fashioned  in  the  Rock, 
Yet  still  I  fold  that  memoried  flock. 


117 


"  '  0,  for  one  hour  !  '  I  sometimes  say, 
'The  aged  form  to  rearray, 
And  scatter  there  the  golden  grain 
Of  wisdom  from  the  One-in-Twain.' 
If  God  leads  on  till  powers  transpose 
There  will  I  stand  as  gifts  unclose." 

His  face  illumined  ;  '  What  a  joke/ 

He  cried,  'yet  what  a  master-stroke! 

A  reappearance  from  the  dead  ; 

Life's  resurrection-flower  dispread, 

And  Wisdom  justified  at  last, 

Where  Prophecy  her  young  life  cast 

Upon  the  cold  unfruitful  flood 

That  held,  as  seemed,  but  channel  mud. 

The  patient  seer,  the  toiling  drudge, 

Confounded  oft  with  'medium  Sludge,'  —  ' 

I  spake,  "  No  more  !  —  let  memories  be  ; 
And,  Brother,  be  you  there,  to  see 
Demonstrant  Immortality." 


POWEES     THAT     SERVE     THE     END. 

Net-works  of  living  electricities, 

In  each  organic  form  of  Earth's  exten.se, 

Pulse  with  a  movement  of  slow  melodies. 

Through  the  snow-crystals  they  by  flames  condense 
They  glimmer  in  the  human  countenance. 

Man  dwells  in  splendors  colored  as  the  bow : 
In  sorrow's  chill  or  rapture's  fire  intense 

The  varying  modulations  fuse  and  flow, 

Yet  all  in  one  control  the  mighty  currents  go. 


118  STAR-FLOWERS. 

ccxcv. 

Theirs  are  the  powers  that  wait  to  play  their  part ; 

That  even  now  are  entering  on  the  stage. 
Man  feels  into  their  currents  by  his  art ; 

He  enters  them  by  thoughts  that  whirl  and  rage ; 

Whilst  they  untwine,  his  structures  to  encage 
And  fold  to  wreathe  mankind  in  full  embrace. 

What  glorious  genii  for  the  End  engage ! 
Calm,  passionless,  they  feel  not  for  the  race ; 
Their  sympathies  but  clasp  the  Word-will  for  their  place. 

CCXCVI. 

They  move  like  mechanisms,  automatic, 

Nor  fear,  nor  hope,  nor  love,  as  men  bestow. 
Mahatmas  of  the  occult  asiatic 

Mayhap  divine  them,  touch  as  snow  to  snow. 

They  colden  to  the  cold,  to  glow  they  glow. 
'Twere  easy  to  mistake  them  for  the  great, — 

The  fifth-dimensioned  people,  who  avow 
Perchance  transposed  through  the  arch-solar  gate, — 
And  yet  their  forms  are  but  as  things  that  serve  a  Fate. 

CCXCVIL 

Men  talk  of  the  persistency  of  force  ; 

Here  are  live  Forces,  structured  to  persist, 
And  fashioned  to  man's  likeness  for  a  course 

Of  energies  no  planet  may  resist. 

One  showed  to  me  by  an  electric  wrist 
That  touched  the  left  hand :  gently  the  wrist  fed 

From  out  my  elements,  pleased  as  if  kissed, 
Until  a  current  from  my  nerves  it  led, 
Wherefrorn  a  crimson  flood  over  its  organ  spread. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  119 

CCXCVIIL 

But  then  the  hand,  that  was  before  unseen, 

Grew  visible  :  it  touched  upon  my  brow : 
The  august  foliage  fashioned  there  from  green 

To  golden  russet  changed, — it  changeth  now. 

The  Word-life  doth  this  shadow-form  endow 
With  a  new  Nature,  twining  through  the  cells : 

There  the  full  summer  did  by  such  avow. 
Electric  currents,  passing  through  the  shells, 
The  net-work  of  the  leaves,  their  withering  foretells. 

(JCXCIX. 

Soon  the  electric  genius  by  such  style 

Shaped  in  my  palm  food  like  a  crimson  fruit : 

I  held  it  to  the  plexial  orb  awhile, 
And  it  dissolved,  newly  to  evolute : 
A  warm  rich  current  reaching  to  the  root 

Passed  through  each  nerve  of  the  organic  tree. 
What  did  the  genius  work  by  such  pursuit  ? 

As  to  the  shade-form  he  enautumned  me. — 

Summer  involves  the  powers ;  she  leaves  the  surfacery. 

CCC. 

I  am  in  Autumn  whilst  the  august  moon 

O'er  yonder  hill-top  lifts  her  large  white  shield. 

Yet  Spring,  I  feel  it  centered  in  me  soon, 
To  print  with  kisses  all  my  nature-field ; — 
The  senses  thrilled  for  cold,  but  uncongealed. 

There's  no  sensation  of  the  time  of  snow : 
Labors  by  ripeness  to  new  labors  yield. 

Is  this  the  shape,  a  little  while  ago, 

That  shuddered  for  a  fear  as  from  the  murderer's  blow  ? 


120  STAR-FLO  WE  US  . 

CCCI. 

Such  are  some  Powers  that  wait  to  serve  the  End  : 

Milder  than  are  the  faintest  winds  of  even, 
The  Word-life  draws  them  as  to  gift  a  friend : 

They  vanish  when  their  services  are  given ; 

Yet  find  man's  frame  on  earth  to  make  it  heaven. 
Silent  in  their  swift-footed  ministries, 

They  glide  where  angels  all  in  vain  have  striven. 
When  they  impermeate  the  world's  disease, 
Death  shall  depart  the  frame  if  Father-Mother  please. 

cccii: 

So  all  the  months  wove  music  in  my  rhyme, 

From  April's  prime  to  rich  mature  July, 
Till  August,  entering  the  nature-clime, 

Found  their  full  ripeness  glowing  to  the  eye, 

But,  rounding  in  the  gathered  energy, 
Brought  no  return.     As  waters  leave  their  bed, 

My  life-founts  lessened  from  their  full  supply : 
The  sense  of  dying  Time  upon  me  led  : 
I  was  as  fruit-trees  when  their  perfect  fruit  is  shed. 

CCCIII. 

For  I  live  fast ;  live  faster  as  time  narrows : 

Yea,  faster  still  it  shall  be  to  the  close. 
If  young  Apollo  drives  the  plow,  the  furrows 

Open  as  passing  through  the  water-flows. — 

How  good  is  God !  toil,  that  a  giant  knows 
To  shrink  from,  takes  me  as  a  winged  child  : 

The  burdens  almost  in  the  sports  repose, 
And  thunderous  thoughts,  from  Heaven's  aerial  piled, 
Glide  from  my  lips  wellnigh  as  love-winds  warmly  rnild. 


STAR-FLOWERS.  121 

BOYHOOD     IN     LILISTAN. 

<  'Tis  a  great  sport,  the  play  of  kingdoming,' 

Said  a  brave  boy.     '  I  hope  you  have  a  plan 
To  let  me  go  into  the  pleasuring, 

And  set  me  somewhere  in  the  Land  of  Ban. 

I'd  like  to  catch  a  ghost,  some  waif  of  man : 
I'd  have  him  in  a  cage  of  kind  regards. 

To  do  a  thing,  first  we  must  think  we  can  : 
I  play  in  doing  things  my  game  of  cards.' — 
'Faithful,'  spake  Issa  then,  'that  child  for  you  enhards.' 

CCCV. 

The  boy  cried,  'Yes,  I  harden,  Majesty! 

I  know  my  Lady's  voice  forms  in  your  speech : 
Her  word  tastes  in  my  bosom  preciously. 

Now  I  was  ripening  soft  as  any  peach, 

Till  thought  into  the  Royalty  gave  reach. 
You  are  a  hard  man :  make  me  hard  likewise. 

A  humming-bird? — I'd  be  a  sharp-billed  lark, 
And  find  some  boy  below,  to  bad  who  plies, 
And  suck  his  death-blood  out,  that  so  he  might  arise. 

CCCVI. 

'  I  'd  play  my  cards  into  him, — such  as  those 

The  reverend  Cupids  and  their  Psyches  make, — 

Till  images  should  in  his  brain  repose 

Of  ladies  who  for  God-time  roast  and  bake, 
And  sacred  clergy  who  give  wine  and  cake. 

My  teacher, — he  is  named  Sir  Stand-for-God  : 
Should  I  his  picture  with  the  others  shake, 

That  boy,  I'm  sure,  would  need  no  whipping  rod  : 

He'd  ask  for  boots  like  mine,  for  righteous  going  shod, 
vi!6 


122  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCCVIL 

'  Our  Lady  Queen  was  named  '  Chrysanthea,' 

But  now  they  call  her  '  Violet-Eyes' :  she  clocks  : 
She  makes  a  ticking  in  the  People's  way. 

The  People's  grain  weaves  double  in  the  shocks. 

New  ships  are  coming , to  the  sea-side  docks  : 
I  heard  of  Jason  and  the  golden  fleece. 

Past  time  into  our  present  time  unlocks  : 
The  boys  and  girls  are  in  a  new  release. 
I  shall  be  whole  some  day ;  now  I  am  but  a  piece.' 

CCCVIIL 

Out  of  the  young  child's  wisdom  many  things 

May  be  divined,  yet  hardly  here  bespoke. 
The  hours  in  Lilistan  are  shaping  wings  : 

For  Earth-work  harden  now  our  little  folk : 

They  grow  to  meet  mankind  by  stroke  on  stroke. 
Toils  the  Arch-Genius  for  the  coming  men. 

The  concept  of  the  Word  doth  there  evoke 
Mysterious  powers  to  fashion  them  again 
For  services  below ;  Earth  shall  find  God-time  then. 

TRUTH-TIME. 

"Why  were  the  Truths  of  Life  so  long  unspoken  ? 

For  the  same  reason  that  they  open  now. 
Who  scatters  seed  before  the  glebe  is  broken  ? 

Who  in  the  ice-bound  furrow  sets  a  plow  ? 

Who  will  the  treasure  of  his  thought  avow 
Where  murderers  or  maniacs  rule  the  age  ? 

What  Purity  will  with  her  charms  endow 
The  gloating  libertine,  who  seeks  the  stage 
With  impious  eyes  that  burn  and  poisonous  lusts  that  rage  ? 


STAR-FLOWERS.  123 

CCCX. 

The  spirit  worlds,  that  shaped  fictitious  heaven 

In  false  societies  of  Church  and  State, 
Dissolved  before  the  Life-Truths  could  be  given. 

Foul  aristocracy  that  there  made  weight, 

Crushing  the  nations  by  an  iron  fate, 
Was  broken,  scattered  like  the  flying  foam. 

The  whirlwind,  led  through  many  a  social  gate, 
O'erthrew  the  altar  and  o'erturned  the  throne, 
Where  Superstition  ruled  and  Despotism  shone. 

CCXI. 

Beneath  the  spirit  worlds  were  ghostly  regions, 

Where  souls,  collective  in  the  Anti-Good, 
Banded  their  empires,  warred  by  hostile  legions, 

Led  in  the  falseness  of  unbrotherhood. 

There  from  of  old  imperial  Caesar  stood ; 
There  all  the  arts  that  splendor  yet  debase, 

The  crimes  that  fatten  full  on  human  blood, 
The  infamies  that  ruin-rot  the  race, 
Coiled  their  vast  social  wreaths  vain  myriads  to  embrace. 

CCCXIL 

There  priesthoods,  grown  by  tyrannies  satanic, 

Wrought  the  black  magic  from  its  deeper  ground. 
False  gods  and  goddesses  reared  powers  titanic, 

By  mysteries  girdled  and  with  glories  crowned. 

There  the  huge  sex-lust  like  a  serpent  wound, 
Infernal  cult  and  custom  shaping  still. 

Woman  in  man  a  food  of  poisons  found ; 
Man  drew  from  woman  impious  fires  to  fill. 
It  seemed  to  angel  eyes  one  vast  eterne  of  111. 


124  STAR-FLOWERS. 

CCCXIII. 

All  that  has  perished,  like  the  exhalation 
From  putrid  marshes  for  the  fiery  sun. 

God  Christus-Christa  through  that  desolation 
By  the  long  travail  of  the  ages  won  : 
So  this  New  Life  is  fashioning  there,  begun. 

New  atmospheres  draw  warm  for  Savior-breath, 
While  streams  of  living  waters  rise  and  run 

Where,  in  the  lowest  depths  mankind  beneath, 

Festered  the  putrid  sea  that  held  the  second  death. 

CCCXIV. 

Hence  comes  the  last,  the  crowning  act  of  all ; 

The  opening  of  the  drama  in  mankind ; 
The  play  of  Savior-life  into  its  ball ; 

The  renovated  sexual  heart  and  mind ; 

God's  bridal  wreath  diffused  upon  the  wind ; 
The  lifting  of  man's  brow  to  meet  the  morn ; 

The  rescue  of  the  word-seed,  where  they  pined 
In  slaveries  and  poverties  forlorn ; — 
Mankind  in  womankind  for  nuptial  youth  reborn. 

cccxv. 

Deep  in  the  heart  of  blossomed  Lilistan, 
I  lean  my  head  upon  the  People's  breast. 

The  Holy  Ghost,  plumed  as  a  crimson  swan, 
Sails  o'er  the  wide  horizon :  from  the  west, 
Like  the  red  sun,  She  vanishes  in  quest 

Of  the  lost  planet ;  there  to  fold  her  wings 
And  overbrood  mankind  for  quiet  rest. — 

Joy  in  this  bosom  lifts  from  myriad  springs. — 

Go  forth,  thou  verse !  in  thee  the  Holy  Spirit  sings, 

END  OF  CANTO  THE  SIXTH. 


PS 


<O 


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